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Nv 


Harriet  Newell  Haskell 

January  14th,  1835,  Waldoboro,  Me. 
May  6th,  1907,   Godfrey,  III. 

A  Span  of  Sunshine  Gold. 


'ROSEMAET  FOR  REMEMBRANCE." 


Dedicated  to 
Those  who  loved  Jier  much  and  long 

by 

One  who  loved  her  more  and  longer. 


Childhood. 

Girlhood. 

Early   Womanhood. 

Maturity. 

Harvest  Home. 


APOLOGIA    {Iniime.) 


Though  this  ''Labor  of  love"  is  intended  for  you 
and  you  only,  dear  Monticello  girls,  for  some  reasons 
it  has  been  undertaken  with  the  most  timorous  re- 
luctance. But  yearning  from  within  and  pressure 
from  without  have  so  combined,  that  further  re- 
sistance to  these  forces  seems  any  longer  impossible, 
while  the  loyalty  of  the  one  who  has  been  "left"  to- 
wards the  one  who  has  been  "taken"  demands  some 
tribute  of  expression. 

Our  beloved,  tenderly  cherished,  and  now 
sincerely  mourned,  though  widely  known,  was  not 
in  the  usually  accepted  sense  a  public  woman.  The 
private  charm  of  her  home  school  life  can  no  more 
be  spread  upon  paper  for  every  runner  to  read  than 
the  odor  of  field  strawberries  or  the  incense  of  lilies. 

As  we  were  always  together  for  over  fifty  years, 
I  have  not  a  single  letter  of  hers  in  my  possession. 
I  am,  moreover,  at  a  distance  from  any  proper  "base 
of  supplies"  (viz.:  exact  data  for  the  narrative), 
therefore  this  is  a  memory  intaglio  rather  than  a 
chronological  record.  It  is  neither  obituary  notice 
nor  eulogy,  for  both  were  fully  compassed  in  the 
Memorial  Echo,  but  is  intended  rather  as  a  freehand 


APOLOGIA.  11 

character  sketch  of  one  so  electrically  alive  that  it 
seemed  impossible  for  death  to  claim  her.  Indeed  she 
yet  lives — her  potent  influence  the  simshine-gold  that 
gilds  to-day  the  towers  of  her  new  Monticello. 

Oh!  give  me  back 

That  sweet  crisp  speech  of  her, 

That  laughter  on  the  air; 

That  buoyant  presence  by  my  side 

And  everywhere ! 

E.  G.  A. 


I. 

CHILDHOOD. 


As  a  child  the  subject  of  this  sketch  was  a  "Little 
Classic"  of  the  unexpected.  What  she  had  done  was 
no  guarantee  for  what  she  would  do  next.  She  could 
"send  a  ball"  like  a  boy ;  though  caught  one  day  climb- 
ing experimentally,  like  a  Jackie,  the  mainmast  of  a 
craft  building  in  the  ship-yard  of  her  native  town,  she 
never  owned  a  thimble  nor  mothered  dolls  overmuch, 
after  the  fashion  of  girls.  Born  to  lead,  she  led  by 
some  sort  of  "divine  right",  which  was  never  gainsaid 
nor  disputed  because  she  led  so  well.  Though  a  hale 
comrade  with  boys  she  was  a  queen  among  girls, 
affiliating  with  each  in  an  individual  and  unique  man- 
ner, easier  to  appreciate  than  describe.  Though  not 
a  "daughter"  of  any  "regiment",  she  was  the  child  of 
her  home  village,  the  little  democrat  of  the  play- 
ground, who  greeted  everybody  she  met  there  with  so 
much  sunshine  in  her  smile,  so  much  sparkle  in  her 
"bonnie  blue  e'en,"  that  she  captured  hearts  by  an 
unconscious  magic  of  free  masonry,  which  was  surer 
and  safer  than  necromancy  of  gypsies  in  the  olden 
time. 

She  was  frankly  mischievous,  but  so  good-natured 
withal,  that  wrath  vanished  when  she  became  her  own 
"confessor"  to  so  bald  a  statement  as — "/  did  it  with 
my  little  hatchet"—/  killed  Cock  Robin!  What  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?"    She  hated  the  bondage  of 


14  CHILDHOOD. 

"pretty  clothes",  and  wore  her  siinbonnet  upon  her 
arm,  danghng  thereto  by  its  strings,  or  else  swinging 
loosely  down  her  back,  quite  below  her  braids  of  Saxon 
hair.  One  of  her  early,  though  not  childish,  griefs,  was 
the  present  of  a  silk  gown,  because  she  said  it  would 
make  her  "ache"  everywhere,  and  she  wept  profusely 
at  the  anticipation  of  being  "dressed  up"  as  a  lady 
when  she  preferred  the  freedom  of  the  field. 

She  was  not  precocious,  and  at  thirteen  remained 
blissfully  unconscious  of  the  numerical  woes  lurking 
in  the  multiplication  table,  but  upon  suddenly  realiz- 
ing her  ignorance,  and  the  necessity  of  some  mathe- 
matical basis  for  her  schemes  of  "frenzied  finance", 
she  stole  into  her  father's  barn,  and  climbing  into  an 
old  carriage,  mastered,  even  the  ''nines",  at  one  ses- 
sion of  solitude.  But  the  knowledge  of  "affairs"  was 
hers  from  the  start.  Keen  to  see,  quick  to  feel,  sure 
to  ask  both  the  first  and  last  question,  she  was  a  cyclo- 
pedia of  "general  information". 

Obstacles,  to  her  were  "dares",  and  every  dare  in 
turn  an  inspiration,  as  w^hen  she  was  confronted  with 
some  forbidden  pleasure.  Not  being  a  pattern  child, 
nor  troubled  with  any  pedagogical  system  of  ethics, 
she  "hungered  and  thirsted  after  M;;righteousness"  in 
the  shape  of  anything  she  must  not  touch,  taste  nor 
handle !  A  negative  roused  her  to  action  like  a  war- 
cry.  Plucking  a  peach-blossom,  the  only  one  on  a 
young  tree  in  her  father's  garden,  because  she  had 
been  told  she  must  let  it  alone,  her  young  defiance  of 
disobedience  soon  turned  into  the  torturing  query, 
what  to  do  with  her  blooming  "graft"  now  she  had 


CHILDHOOD.  15 

obtained  it?  Hiding  her  guilty  secret  in  her  uneasy 
breast,  she  gave  the  stolen  bloom  an  unromantic  burial 
behind  the  molasses  jug  in  the  ''kitchen  pantry",  and 
went  her  way  like  many  another  petty  sinner,  neither 
happier  nor  any  wiser  than  she  had  been  before. 

Not  being  allowed  the  privilege  of  going  "bare- 
foot" like  the  boys,  she  took  the  matter  in  her  own 
hands,  removed  her  shoes  and  stockings  on  her  way 
to  district  school,  hid  them  under  a  fence,  and  unblush- 
ingly  played  the  role  of  the  barefoot  girl  before  the 
astonished  eyes  of  teacher  and  pupils.     Here  again  a 
swift   and  most  unexpected   retribution   awaited   her, 
for  a   thunder   shower  arising  during  the  afternoon 
session,  her  father,  armed  with  umbrella,  and  of  all 
things  rubbers,  arrived  at  the  little  school-house  to  es- 
cort  his   lady-bird   to  the  home-nest.       It   not  being 
quite  time  for  dismissal,  he  was  invited  to  wait  in- 
side until  one  more  class  had  been  called  to  the  front 
— hers,   of   course !     There   was   no   escape,   and   she 
must  patter  forward  in  her  shame,  her  bare  pedal  ex- 
tremities not  to  be  hidden  under  short  petticoats.     She 
saw  his  eagle  eye  slowly  travel  downward,  and  the 
horrified  expression  upon  his  stern  countenance  as  he 
thundered  in  a  tone  Jove  might  have  coveted :     ''Har- 
riet, zvhere  are  your  shoes?"     The  fifth  act  of  that 
serio-comedy  we  will  not  rehearse,  sparing  the  nerves 
and  saving  the  sympathies  of  our  readers  for  Legiti- 
mate Drama,  broader  in  draft,  but  not  so  momentous 
or   sudden   in   disastrous   outcome   as   this   petty   tra- 
gedy, unexpected  and  significant,  of  a  child  in  dis- 
tress ! 


16  CHILDHOOD. 

On  another  occasion,  while  visiting  in  Boston,  she 
wandered  with  her  little  hostess-playmate  out  upon 
Washington  street  to  see  the  sights  abroad,  and  look 
at  the  window  displays  within.  Beholding  some  gaily 
pictured  cards,  then  known  as  Buzby  cards  for  child- 
ren, she  entered  the  emporium  boldly  and  coolly  or- 
dered a  pack.  Seizing  her  treasure  as  if  it  were  an 
apple  from  the  tree  of  life,  she  marched  out  calling 
airily  over  her  shoulder:  ''Charge  to  father!"  She 
was  so  naively  innocent  as  well  as  swiftly  imperative 
in  the  transaction  that  the  amazed  but  amused  custo- 
dian allowed  her  to  depart  minus  arrest  for  petty  lar- 
ceny. 

Her  volatile  spirits  bubbled  to  the  well-head  every 
hour,  and  brimmed  over  to  any  "call  of  the  wild". 
There  were  no  diversions  in  her  native  town  that  met 
her  passion  for  "something  doing"  worth  while. 
There  were  no  vaudeville  entertainments,  no  Y.  M. 
C.  A.'s,  no  W.  C.  T.  U.'s ;  the  only  gathering  of 
"clans"  being  the  fortnightly  sewing  societies  and 
quilting  parties  for  the  elders — no  "Girls'  Friendlies" 
or  dances  for  the  juveniles — only  the  Sunday  evening 
and  weekly  prayer  meetings  for  mixed  audiences,  de- 
signed for  social  as  well  as  religious  communion. 

Therefore,  one  day  when  flaming  billboards  on  all 
the  fences  advertised  the  coming,  in  the  near  future, 
of  a  circus — and  moreover  a  circus  with  fzi'O  clowns — 
she  was  moved  to  primeval  instincts  of  revolt.  She 
pleaded  eloquently  the  dual  enticement  of  such  an  un- 
heard-of equipment,  yet  all  in  vain !  The  tyrants  of 
the  parental  persuasion  would  not  listen  to  her  thrill- 


CHILDHOOD.  17 

ing  appeal  of  "Just  this  once !  Only  think,  tzvo 
clowns !"  Submission  was  not  to  be  considered  for  a 
moment,  and  she  began  to  "mobilize"  her  resources 
of  escape  from  the  parental  mansion  on  that  coming 
Saturday  afternoon,  when  she  was  allowed  merciful 
freedom  from  scholastic  fetters.  She  immediately 
formed  herself  into  a  "Ways  and  Means  Committee" 
of  One,  to  raise  the  necessary  funds  for  the  success- 
ful accomplishment  of  her  escapade.  She  did  not  own 
a  penny,  and  a  working  capital  must  form  the  basis 
of  her  monetary  operations.  After  canvassing  for  the 
second  time  the  possibilities  of  a  sort  of  harmless 
graft  that  should  inconvenience  nobody,  she  quietly 
and  privately  removed  the  palm-leaf  fans  from  the 
"meeting-house"  pews  occupied  by  her  relatives, 
thinking  perhaps  she  was  invading  only  private  prop- 
erty rights.  Said  fans  in  some  mysterious  manner 
she  conveyed  to  the  camping-ground  of  the  record- 
breaking  show,  and  by  the  aid  of  some  inveigled  mas- 
culine agents,  for  boys  were  always  her  loyal  allies, 
she  converted  her  purloined  wares  into  "ready  cash" 
with  which  ill-gotten  gains  she  made  her  audacious 
entree  to  the  Elysium  of  the  "Ring".  This  flagrant 
transgression  in  the  role  of  "heavy  villain"  for  a  time 
at  least  remained  undetected,  unpunished,  and  there- 
fore unsung,  until  the  "star"  in  after  years  related  the 
story  in  her  inimitable  way,  perhaps  to  point  a  moral, 
or  more  probably  to  adorn  a  racy  tale. 

But  these  somewhat  crooked  and  peculiar  peccadil- 
loes were  not  confined  to  the  working  days  of  the 
week.     Sunday  presented  a  stififer  challenge  to  some 


18  CHILDHOOD. 

exciting  deed  with  which  to  offset  the  dull  duties  of 
the  monotonous  day.  Oh,  the  pain  of  being  ''dressed 
up''  for  church  in  that  silk  gown  and  those  unneces- 
sarily shining  shoes !  Her  father  being  choir-master 
and  her  elder  sister  his  leading  soprano,  Harriet  must 
be  safely  deposited  in  the  same  gallery  at  one  side,  as 
her  little  mother  in  the  family  pew  below  did  not  w4sh 
to  assume  the  responsibility  of  any  possible  antics  she 
might  feel  called  upon  to  perform.  But  she  proved 
equal  to  resenting  this  ignominious  separation  from 
the  congregation  at  large.  It  was  a  most  skilful  bit 
of  ^'target  practice"  when,  leaning  over  the  rail  be- 
fore service  began,  she  dropped  an  acorn  on  the  bald 
pate  of  a  venerable  deacon  below,  who  had  lingered 
for  a  moment's  conversation  in  the  aisle,  and  dodged 
dexterously  back  out  of  sight,  leaving  him  to  imagine 
some  ''new  dispensation"  of  an  acrobatic  gospel  above, 
for  which  he  had  not  been  prepared  in  his  boyhood 
days.  The  sonorous  sermon  from  the  pulpit  at  the 
other  end  of  the  house — not  being  particularly  adapted 
to  her  "salad"  mentality,  as  it  treated  topics,  "Predes- 
tination" perhaps,  or  "Divine  Sovereignty",  quite 
foreign  to  her  line  of  thought — engrossed  her  not  at 
all.  But  as  she  was  never  weary  of  i7/-doing,  she  drew 
a  lead-pencil  from  the  capacious  museum  of  even  her 
Sabbatical  pocket,  and  proceeded  to  fill  in  all  the  o's 
in  her  hymn-book,  making  the  long-suffering  pages 
appear  as  if  attacked  by  small-pox  or  bubonic  plague. 
Books  were  her  abhorrence  unless  spattered  with 
pictures,  and  those  were  not  the  days  of  illustrated 
magazines,  but  she  did  devour  Pilgrim's  Progress  be- 


CHILDHOOD.  19 

cause  she  supposed  it  a  thrilling  novel,  and  novels 
were  "contraband  of  war"  in  that  day  and  generation. 
It  carried  the  additional  charm  of  having  to  be  sur- 
reptitiously read  at  unseasonable  hours,  and  then  con- 
cealed between  the  feather-beds  in  the  "guest  cham- 
ber", where  members  of  the  family,  an  ever-active  de- 
tective police  force,  would  be  less  likely  to  pounce 
upon  it ! 

The  hay-mow  in  the  barn  was  the  theatre  of  many 
of  her  histrionic  efforts,  and  she  always  appeared  as 
stage-manager,  and  "star"  combined,  her  more  im- 
portant roles,  however,  being  set  by  the  vicissitudes 
of  her  daily  life  in  the  "open" !  Her  musical  educa- 
tion was  pursued  under  divers  and  sundry  difficulties, 
which  she  met  with  her  usual  sangfroid.  The 
straight- jacket  of  steady  practice  along  the  tedious 
route  of  five-finger  exercises  was  not  to  be  meekly 
endured,  therefore  she  procured  a  boy  "understudy", 
who  upon  promise  of  some  return  courtesy  slyly  stole 
into  the  music  room  and  kept  up  a  steady  thrumming, 
in  order  that  the  watchful  mother  above  stairs  should 
be  persuaded  thereby  to  suppose  her  young  hopeful 
in  the  throes  of  musical  evolution  to  a  marvelous  de- 
gree. When  discovered  and  "brought  to  book"  in  the 
shape  of  solitary  confinement  and  the  stimulating  diet 
of  bread  and  water,  the  by  no  means  non-plussed  cul- 
prit received  her  allotted  punishment  with  such  un- 
failing nonchalance  that  it  seemed  like  imprisoning  a 
segment  of  rainbow  to  keep  her  in  durance  vile.  This 
young  captive  of  the  household  Bastile  was  never  sul- 
len, always  sunny,  even  under  the  most  depressing  cir- 


20  CHILDHOOD. 

cumstances,  and  moreover  usually  managed  by  some 
"wireless"  telepathy  to  communicate  with  her  clien- 
tele upon  the  outside,  stating  her  immediate  need  of  a 
more  substantial  and  appetizing  menu,  whereupon  by 
means  of  a  kite-string  derrick,  or  some  other  ingeni- 
ous contrivance,  various  delicacies  were  noiselessly 
hoisted  into  the  stealthily  opened  window  of  the 
hastily  improvised  penitentiary  wherein  our  non-peni- 
tent but  rather  jolly  jail-bird  was  in  enforced  retreat. 

Do  not  suppose  that  all  this  time  there  was  no 
sagacious  effort  to  reform  the  skittish  criminal  on  the 
general  principles  of  law  and  order,  but  she  presented 
to  all  such  instruction  the  proverbial  "duck's  back", 
and  while  she  listened  good-humoredly,  the  counsel 
was  making  "rapid  transit"  to  the  other  ear !  It  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  her  that  children  were  made 
for  any  other  purpose  than  to  be  a  means  of  saving^ 
grace  to  long-suffering  parents  through  their  "much 
tribulation"  in  bringing  them  up. 

As  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing,  our  juvenile 
was  not  a  Sabbath  School  book  precocity  of  "early 
piety".  Her  parents  were  too  fun-loving  themselves, 
as  well  as  wise,  to  break  her  down,  and  even  to  curb 
her  judiciously  must  have  been  a  frequent  problem  in 
which  the  values  of  x  and  y  were  indeterminate,  for 
animal  spirits,  like  champagne,  will  foam  upon  the 
least  provocation.  This  picture  is  not  that  of  a  digni- 
fied child,  but  has  been  drawn  from  the  life — not  "still 
life",  but  life  effervescent  and  scintillating.  Remem- 
ber, reader,  that  this  same  fertility  of  invention  and 
wealth  of  resource,  determination  of  will  and  bubble  of 


CHILDHOOD.  21 

Spirit-sparkle,  in  after  years,  when  disciplined  by  ex- 
perience and  trained  by  compelling  circumstance,  made 
her  the  woman  she  was.  Rebuke  could  not  "wither" 
her,  nor  restraint  "stale"  her  "infinite  variety" ! 

No  need  to  screw  that  "courage  to  the  sticking- 
point"  for  it  was  never  wnscrewed.  The  "white  plume" 
was  ever  in  her  helmet;  she  was  her  own  "army  with 
banners",  and  let  who  would  follow  or  desert,  she 
never  hauled  down  her  flag.  Victory  was  ever  at  the 
helm;  later,  not  victory  for  the  slaughter  of  others, 
but  triumph  over  self  that  she  might  save  others. 
There  was  no  such  word  as  defeat  in  her  vocabulary, 
and  she  conquered  not  with  the  sword,  but  with  the 
olive,  from  the  very  first — unconsciously,  but  all  the 
more  surely,  as  children  do.  She  lived  in  the  present, 
every  day  a  red-letter  day  in  her  calendar  of  continu- 
ous delight ;  but  not  in  any  self-seeking  way,  for  noth- 
ing meant  much  that  was  not  shared.  This,  however, 
is  anticipating  maturer  values. 

At  the  ripe  age  of  fourteen  it  was  considered  advis- 
able to  change  this  scene  of  operations.  Her  field  of 
adventure  had  been  thoroughly  explored,  her  camp- 
ing-ground too  well  trodden;  the  heroine  was  becom- 
ing sated  with  triumph,  and  too  familiar  with  her 
com.peers.  She  was,  therefore,  with  the  more  staid 
and  dignified  sister  heretofore  mentioned,  sent  to  Cas- 
tleton,  Vt.,  and  there  placed  in  a  mixed  school  of 
girls  and  boys :  a  fine  arena  for  even  more  extended 
schemes,  though  of  a  somewhat  different  character,  as 
she  was  under  constant  supervision,  and  also  passing 
from  a  "mere  child"  into  a  rather  broader  realm,  that 
of  the  schoolgirl  "rampant". 


II. 

GIRLHOOD. 


The  advent  of  our  heroine  into  Castleton  Seminary- 
was  an  ^vent  in  the  annals  of  that  venerable  institu- 
tion for  co-education.  To  which  wing  of  the  co  did 
she  belong?  There  seemed  a  call  for  another  cabinet 
of  miscellaneous  curiosities  in  which  to  place  this  new 
"genus",  so  subtle  to  plan,  so  swift  to  execute,  was 
she  masculine  or   feminine — or  compound?     So  sure 

to  offend,  but  as  ready  to  atone — was  she   saint,  or 
sinner,  or  a  "Blend"? 

The  President  or  Head  Master,  a  very  Jupiter 
Tonans  in  demicanor,  and  regarded  with  the  most  rev- 
erential awe  by  all  his  subordinates,  was  somewhat 
amazed  by  her  breezy,  "Good-morning,  Doctor'',  as 
though  he  were  a  "hale  fellow  well  met''  at  a  tennis 
match.  The  Professor  of  Botany  soon  made  her  his 
boon  companion — his  "fetch  and  carry"  in  excursions 
afield  for  "rare  specimens".  She  astonished  him  by 
her  ready  assimilation  of  nature-knowledge  and  en- 
tertained him  by  her  mercurial,  original,  but  never 
silly  prattle.  The  Preceptress  shielded  and  comforted 
her  when  in  disgrace,  an  often  occurrence,  and  her 
music  teacher,  though  in  a  state  of  abject  despair  as 
to  producing  a  "prodigy"  in  this  special  department, 
was  won  to  tenderest  affection  by  the  ingenious  wiles 
of  this  little  scapegrace  from  regulation  duty  at  an 
instrument  she  hated  and  devoutly  wished  ground  to 


GIRLHOOD.  23 

powder,  while  the  music  page  at  which  she  stared  un- 
seeingly  she  would  fain  have  torn  to  tatters  in  some  of 
her  fits  of  impotent  rage  because  she  could  not  become 
"expert"  in  a  minute. 

Mathematics  she  did  not  abjure — but  English  Com- 
position! She  put  her  blank  (entirely  blank)  paper  in 
her  shoe  in  order  to  spend  "required  time"  on  this 
literary  bug-bear.  With  groans  (unutterable  in  public 
but  vociferous  in  private)  and  with  chewed  pencil-tops 
as  her  daily  provender,  she  wrestled  with  the  demon 
of  prose  construction  until  despairing  of  success  she 
savagely  tossed  aside  conscientious  scruples,  and 
abandoned  herself  to  some  tabooed  sport  in  which  she 
could  forget  the  woes  of  the  un-ready  as  well  as  the 
un-steady  writer!  But  in  some  miraculous  manner, 
having  meanwhile  torn  her  hair  and  deluged  her  pina- 
fore with  ink,  she  managed  to  appear  at  "Rhetorical" 
with  some  trenchant  production,  the  precursor  in  later 
years  of  such  original  themes  as  "Railroad  up  the  Hill 
of  Science",  or  an  imaginary  and  thrilling  epic,  of 
which  "The  Last  Victim  of  the  Deluge"  was  the 
wretched  hero.  She  ''fair'!  Never!  This  minia- 
ture Lady  Macbeth  brandishing  the  dagger  of  oppor- 
tunity in  the  shape  of  a  "Washington  MedaUion"  or, 
as  she  preferred  to  call  it,  "Americus  Vespucius"  pen, 
stabbed  to  the  very  heart  of  it  the  doughtiest  obstacle 
in  her  scholastic  path,  and  ever  challenged  laughter 
direct  from  all  listeners  to  whom  her  most  graphic 
contributions  of  child  literature  were  submitted. 

She  was  neither  abashed  on  the  one  hand  nor  con- 
ceited on  the  other,  but  carried  herself  with  a  valiant 


24  GIRLHOOD. 

front  which  challenged  the  admiration  of  her  mates 
and  defied  the  criticism  of  her  superiors.  She  minded 
neither  encomiums  nor  censure,  but  was  sufficient  unto 
herself  at  all  appointed  times,  if  forced  to  the  issue, 
though  never  overly  ambitious  of  distinction.  She 
simply  "went  ahead"  unmindful  of  what  others  were 
doing  unless  they  encroached  upon  her  "preserves", 
which  was  seldom. 

As  in  her  native  town,  she  became  the  "mascot"  of 
this  village  street,  and  though  not  the  Hebe  or  cup- 
bearer of  the  gods,  she  was  the  recognized  errand- 
runner  for  anybody  and  everybody  who  needed  her 
services.  Her  charming  willingness  to  help  other  peo- 
ple manage  their  afifairs,  as  also  her  constant  alacrity 
in  enhancing  what  seemed  to  her  the  general  good, 
won  for  her  hosts  of  genial  admirers,  for  she  was  not 
so  much  a  "busy-body  in  other  men's  matters"  as  a 
helper  omnipresent  wherever  and  whenever  she  might 
contiibute  substantial  service. 

She  could  not  be  "chaperoned"  any  more  than  a 
rocket  or  a  shooting-star,  and  the  spasmodic  efforts  of 
the  authorities  to  keep  her  "in  position"  were  more 
commendable  than  successful.  She  slipped  "from  un- 
der" in  the  most  unprecedented  fashion,  and  was  finally 
captured  on  some  shining  height  of  erratic  achieve- 
ment that  only  served  to  accentuate  her  harmless  but 
quite  dashing  enterprise.  No  regulation  behavior  was 
her  accepted  code,  and  yet  she  was  by  no  means  a 
coarse  hoyden  of  misrule,  and  only  made  things  move 
her  way  with  neatness  and  dispatch,  yet  without  dis- 
honor.    The  essential  humor  of  a  situation  so  appealed 


GIRLHOOD.  25 

to  her  that  she  made  it  germane  otherwhere,  and  even 
the  veriest  dragons  of  school  discipHne  were  forced  to 
smile,  temporarily  to  be  sure,  when  she  appeared  a 
criminal  at  the  bar,  and  pleaded  "guilty"  with  bewitch- 
ing drollery. 

All  this  time  the  ''tares"  were  not  choking  out  the 
wheat,  for  it  was  not  altogether  "stony  ground"  upon 
which  so  much  "good  seed"  had  fallen.  By  degrees 
she  began  to  emulate  quick  brains  as  well  as  ready 
wits,  and  there  was  a  manifest  uplift  of  "study"  pro- 
duction until  it  appeared  there  was  something  more 
than  fun  in  her  brain  granary. 

At  this  juncture  when  she  was  giving  some  promise 
of  better  things,  her  guardian  sister  was  graduated 
(1851),  and  it  was  thought  best  not  to  return  our  pro- 
tege to  the  same  school  for  another  year  as  she  had  ex- 
pected. Her  watchful  family,  ever  on  the  look-out  for 
breakers  ahead,  intercepted  a  letter  to  one  of  her  school 
cronies,  in  which  she  outlined  such  a  campaign  of  mis- 
chief for  the  future,  giving  explicit  directions  as  to 
when  and  where  and  how  implements  could  be  surrep- 
titiously obtained  for  cooking  and  providing  an  appe- 
tizing night  menu — for  the  boys,  mind  you — that  our 
little  lady's  plans  came  to  a  most  unexpected  halt.  But 
she  had  already  made  her  "mark",  not  an  entirely 
black  one,  as  subsequent  events  proved.  After  much 
careful  consideration  of  future  possibilities  in  so  grave 
a  case,  through  the  influence  of  a  friend  at  that  time 
Associate  Principal  of  Mt.  Holyoke  Seminary,  (South 
Hadley,  Mass.)  this  scarcely  more  than  child  was 
placed  under  this  mature  protection,  and  entered  that 


26  GIRLHOOD. 

renowned  institution  (1852)  founded  by  the  notable 
Mary  Lyon,  pioneer  of  educational  privilege  for 
women. 

Here  as  in  Castleton  she  distinguished  herself  at 
once  as  the  "star"  of  fresh  arrivals,  and  was  soon 
known  everywhere  by  the  pet  names  of  ''Tow  Head" 
and  "Great  Heart",  the  first  bestowed,  as  will  readily 
be  imagined,  on  account  of  the  spun  silk  of  her  fair 
hair ;  the  second  suggested  by  an  incident  now  to  be 
related,  and  not  told  in  any  previous  Memorial. 

There  was  "entered"  at  the  same  time  with  herself  a 
girl  with  a  withered  arm,  and  in  other  ways,  though 
"brainy",  rather  peculiar  and  disagreeable.  She  came, 
moreover,  from  the  precincts  of  Waldoboro,  but  not 
moving  in  the  same  class  nor  claiming  the  remotest  ac- 
quaintance with  her  fellow  town's-child.  As  is  usual 
in  such  unfortunate  cases,  it  proved  impossible  to  find 
a  room-mate  for  her,  which  seemed  imperative,  as  the 
school  was  over-flowing  with  pupils,  while  many  others 
were  impatiently  suing  for  admission.  When  affairs 
appeared  desperate,  a  rousing  knock  was  heard  one  day 
upon  the  Principal's  door,  and  to  the  response  "Come 
in"  a  ringing  voice  answered:  "I  will  take  Miss  .... 
in  juy  room",  and  she  "made  good" !  Not  only  did  she 
champion  but  she  compassioned  this  unfortunate,  not 
in  any  patronizing  way,  but  with  such  a  "carry"  of 
ozone  in  the  social  air  that  no  one  dared  do  otherwise 
than  meet  her  protege  on  the  broad  levels  of  school 
camaraderie. 

By  many  kindly  deeds  of  like  nature,  though  not  so 
conspicious  perhaps  in  the  doing,  but  prompted  by  the 


GIRLHOOD.  27 

same  mercurial  temperament,  "Great  Heart"  soon  be- 
came not  only  first  in  the  class-room,  an  easy  pre- 
eminence for  her,  but  first  in  frolic,  and,  better  than  all 
else,  first  in  the  hearts  of  her  school  fellows.  Sport  she 
must  have,  and  sport  she  made  at  every  possible  turn. 
She  did  not  break  rules,  but  she  interpreted  them  in  a 
most  unheard  of  manner,  to  the  amazement  of  teachers 
not  accustomed  to  the  "higher  criticism"  of  the  "canon 
law". 

As  is  well  known,  domestic  science  not  only,  but 
domestic  drudgery  in  active  "ruction"  was  the  then 
primitive  feature  of  institutional  management,  there  be- 
ing "departments"  of  service,  such  as,  "silver  circle", 
"glass  circle",  "bread  circle",  "pudding  circle",  each 
name  denoting  specific  duties  to  be  performed.  When- 
ever any  such  circle  was  observed  in  a  state  of  spon- 
taneous combustion  (laughter),  at  the  very  centre  of 
the  group  was  our  game-y  culprit,  pushing  the  button 
and  setting  the  machinery  in  motion  which  seemed 
.y^//-propelling.  Caught  in  each  fresh  iniquity,  she 
was  promptly  "degraded"  and  placed  in  some  lower 
and  more  limited  sphere.  If  on  the  "pudding  circle" 
she  would  whisper  under  her  breath  on  the  way  to 
dinner:  "Girls,  don't  eat  any  pudding  to-day!  It's 
full  of  strings,  buttons,  etc."  Whereupon  to  carry  out 
the  joke  the  repetitious,  "No,  I  thank  you,"  at  the  din- 
ner table  challenged  the  presiding  teacher's  startled 
surprise  and  indignation.  If  on  the  "mopping  circle", 
for  to  that  ignominious  occupation  had  she  fallen  at 
last  by  swift  and  sure  degrees  of  sin,  she  would  lift  her 
mop  high  in  air  and  deluge  the  floor,  thus  making 


28  GIRLHOOD. 

navigation  a  science  of  transit  by  water,  not  suggested 
in  the  curriculum !  She  was  then  placed  in  solitary 
confinement  on  the  "bread  circle",  where  being  the 
sole  perfcirmer  during  her  particular  hour  of  service, 
she  experienced  much  difficulty  in  distinguishing  her- 
self to  her  satisfaction. 

But  her  golden  opportunities  were  found  in  the 
night  dormitory,  where  third  room-mates  took  turns  in 
leaving  their  own  apartments  for  the  public  ''sleeping- 
place".  Here  she  displayed  her  ripest  energies,  and 
there  was  no  class  of  high  comedy  which  she  failed  to 
introduce.  "Pillow-fights''  were  mild  beside  the  im- 
provised gymnastics  she  ''personally  conducted". 
When  upon  the  sudden  approach  of  the  "night  officer'' 
her  acrobats  rolled  into  bed,  they  as  precipitously 
rolled  out  again,  for  chestnut  burrs  and  thistles  were 
not  couch-companions  calculated  to  invite  slumber. 
As  the  manager  of  this  embryo  vaudeville  could  be 
no  other  than  the  redoubtable  H.  H.,  she  was  again 
summarily  removed  from  this  environment  and  com- 
pelled to  sleep  on  a  lounge  in  the  room  of  the  sternest 
of  teachers,  whose  rest  she  so  disturbed  by  a  skilfully 
feigned  snoring  "habit",  that  it  was  concluded  the 
punishment  outwitted  the  crime,  and  the  clever  convict 
was  remanded  to  her  legitimate  quarters. 

Sundays,  as  before,  taxed  her  energies  to  the  ut- 
most because  she  must  devise  plausible  excuses  for 
non-attendance  at  church,  as,  her  "rubbers  had  holes" 
(where  she  put  her  feet  in)  ;  she  had  removed  the 
trimming  from  her  bonnet  (remember  this  was  a  half- 
century  ago  when  girls  wore  demure  bonnets),  with 


GIRLHOOD.  29 

malice  prepense,  of  course,  and  could  not  go  bare- 
headed!  But  the  unsympathetic  judge  ordered  her 
to  r^-trim  or  go  w;itrimmed,  which  the  girl  audaciously 
did,  to  the  dismay  of  her  ''chief"  and  the  amusement 
of  everybody  seated  in  her  rear — her  bonnet  denuded 
of  all  save  strings.  As  her  section  of  the  school  oc- 
cupied the  galleries  she  was  enabled  from  this  vantage 
point  to  caricature,  in  a  manner  worthy  of  John  Leech 
or  Thomas  Nast,  not  only  the  minister,  but  various 
members  of  the  congregation  who  appealed  to  her 
sense  of  the  comic  either  in  feature  or  attire.  One  of 
her  seat-mates  not  only  smiling  but  actually  laugh- 
ing so  much  out  loud  as  to  arrest  general  attention, 
was  summoned  to  the  Principal's  room  and  threatened 
with  the  loss  of  her  diploma  if  she  would  not  tell  what 
she  was  laughing  at,  which  she  positively  refused  to 
do,  whereupon  counsel  for  the  defendant  appeared,  ac- 
knowledging herself  responsible  for  this  unspeakable 
outrage  upon  the  sacred  proprieties  of  the  occasion, 
and  producing  for  governmental  inspection  the  offend- 
ing cartoons ;  suffice  it  to  say  a  ''change  of  venue"  was 
apparently  ordered,  for  the  impending  charges  were 
never  more  heard  from. 

But  there  remains  to  be  told  "another  story",  for 
though  the  despair,  this  recalcitrant  pupil  was  also  the 
glory  of  her  teachers.  The  recitation  hours  sparkled 
with  the  surprises  of  her  original  questions  as  well  as 
answers,  also  her  naive  suggestions  regarding  the  fea- 
sibility of  altering  the  text  books  to  suit  the  limited 
capacities  of  the  victims  thereof.  But  she  was  teach- 
able, though  not  with  humility  abounding.     She  kept 


30  GIRLHOOD. 

the  class  as  well  as  the  school  in  a  ferment  of  expecta- 
tion as  to  her  achievements  scholastic,  and  rarely  fell 
below  anticipation,  while  often  going  beyond  it.  She 
scorned  a  "sneak",  and  though  herself  sometimes  an 
"artful  dodger",  it  was  not  in  a  cowardly  manner  nor 
at  the  expense  of  another. 

Though  she  never  carried  any  studential  aspect  of 
worry  or  fret,  never  "poring"  over  her  books  as  did  so 
many  of  her  classmates,  she  always  passed  her  pub- 
lic examinations  triumphantly  over  and  above  every 
other  student,  attracting  attention  not  only  by  her  un- 
usual personnel,  but  by  her  quick  replies,  and  her  "at 
home"  manner  with  the  subject  in  hand.  As  she 
crossed  the  large  and  always  crowded  hall  to  the 
blackboard,  for  the  moment  apparent  queen  of  all  she 
surveyed,  there  was  a  hush  in  the  audience  and  a  smile 
of  satisfaction  when  in  her  turn  she  was  called  upon 
for  her  "demonstration".  Then  she  made  her  title 
clear  as  a  "leader"  in  thought,  either  mathematical  or 
scientific. 

She  was  also  head  and  front  of  the  debating  so- 
ciety, which,  however,  became  so  vociferous  in  its  on- 
goings that  it  was  allowed  "to  be"  only  on  condition 
that  the  teacher  of  Logic  should  preside  at  its  too 
lively  sessions.  That  killed  it ;  not  immediately,  but  by 
slow  strangulation  of  the  "salad"  ideas  of  brainy  but 
immature  girls,  "free  lances"  to  a  somewhat  perilous 
degree. 

Being  denied  permission  to  formally  celebrate  the 
Fourth  of  July  in  the  Seminary  Hall,  a  petty  revolu- 
tion was  not  only  planned  but  successfully  carried  out 


GIRLHOOD.  31 

by  the  "minute"  woman  of  the  occasion.  Having  pre- 
viously tied  black  silk  aprons,  which  were  then  worn, 
to  every  door  knob  on  the  corridors,  in  lieu  of  the  flag 
so  despised  and  rejected  by  the  Faculty  "ancients  and 
honorables",  she  marshalled  her  numerous  followers 
after  school  hours  and  led  them  into  the  woods  at  the 
back  of  the  house,  then  proceeded  with  a  program  as 
patriotic  as  unusual.  The  singing  of  America,  Star 
Spangled  Banner,  etc.,  was  supported  by  an  orchestra 
of  jewsharps  and  combs,  accordions,  etc.,  after  which 
the  spreadeagle  orator,  none  other  than  the  grand  rebel 
herself,  delivered  a  soul-stirring  harangue  on  Govern- 
ment for  Girls,  hy  Girls,  of  Girls,  themselves!  (She 
was  breaking  no  rules,  you  see,  only  giving  them  a 
more  modern  interpretation,  after  the  manner  of  or 
rather  foreshadowing  the  "new  thought"  in  educa- 
tion.) The  teacher  of  Logic  afore-mentioned,  getting 
wind  of  what  was  going  on,  wandered  roundabout-ly 
to  the  grove,  becoming  an  unseen  listener  to  the 
eloquent  peroration,  which  so  amused  her  that  she 
made  a  minority  report  in  behalf  of  this  new  "con- 
tinental congress",  declaring  that  the  end  justified  the 
means,  and  that  so  innocent  but  ingenious  an  ebulli- 
tion of  jocund  spirit  had  best  be  let  judiciously  alone. 
The  grand  morale  of  that  chief  of  sinners  convinced 
everybody  that  wherever  she  moved  in  after  life  she 
would  become  a  person  of  distinction. 

Permit  here  another  account  of  this  same  incident, 
also  written  from  memory  many  years  after  by 
another  classmate.  Miss  Anna  C.  Edwards,  of  North- 
ampton,   later    Associate    Principal    at    Holyoke.      It 


32  GIRLHOOD. 

diflPcrs  in  no  important  particular  from  the  foregoing, 
and  is  endorsed  by  this  writer,  who  was  a  modest 
member  of — 'The  Band"  ! 

"A  surprise  was  perpetrated  in  the  form  of  a  mock 
celebration  in  the  grove  near  Miss  Lyon's  monument. 
There  busy  hands  had  arranged  reserved  seats  for  the 
teachers  and  a  platform  for  various  speakers,  with  a 
'band'  provided  with  various  Castanet  and  tin  pan 
accessories,  which  certainly  added  much  to  the  gayety 
of  the  occasion,  while  the  large  audience  contentedly 
disposed  itself  on  the  green  grass  under  the  trees. 

One  of  the  most  dignified  seniors — I  have  never 
seen  her  equal — called  the  meeting  to  order,  and  pre- 
sided over  the  whole  program : 

1.  Music  by  the  band. 

2.  Letters  from  distinguished  personages,  express- 
ing their  regret  for  their  unavoidable  absence.  Presi- 
dent Pierce  could  not  come  because  his  dog  and  cat 
were  sick;  Mrs.  Partington  was  detained  by  Ike's  ill- 
ness, and  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  United  States  Sen- 
ator, had  suffered  from  spinal  complaint  ever  since 
he  entered  the  protest  of  the  New  England  clergy 
against  the  Nebraska  bill.  Some  of  the  alumnae  do 
not  remember,  and  may  not  appreciate,  the  feeling 
aroused  all  over  the  North  by  that  Nebraska  bill,  and 
the  storm  of  vituperation  that  fell  upon  Mr.  Everett 
from  the  Southern  Senators  when  he  presented  a  re- 
monstrance against  it  signed  by  three  thousand  min- 
isters of  New  England.  He  was  quite  overcome  by  it, 
so  much  so,  that  he  apologized  for  offering  such  an 
insult  to  his  colleagues,  and  was  himself  stigmatized 


GIRLHOOD.  33 

thereafter  at  the  North,  as  wanting  courage  and  back- 
bone. 

3.  Singing  of  an  original  hymn  by  the  whole  as- 
sembly accompanied  by  the  *'band".  If  I  had  antici- 
pated writing  this  account,  more  than  half  a  century 
later,  I  would  have  preserved  the  name  of  the  author. 
Who  knows  what  fame  as  a  poet  she  may  have  since 
achieved ! 

i.  Speeches,  three  of  which  I  recall :  Em. 
Wight,  a  little  flyaway  body,  said  she  hoped  we  would 
all  appreciate  the  great  sacrifice  she  had  made  in  leav- 
ing her  husband  and  six  small  children  in  the  distant 
state  of  Illinois,  in  order  to  attend  this  meeting — "I've 
forgot  the  rest" — then  sprang  off  the  platform  as 
quickly  as  she  had  mounted  it,  and  I  have  never  been 
able  to  decide  whether  she  really  had  forgotten  the 
rest,  or  meant  to  end  in  just  that  way. 

Then  Harriet  Haskell,  afterward  the  renowned 
principal  of  Monticello  Seminary,  Godfrey,  111.,  came 
forward  trembling  with  age,  leaning  on  two  crutches 
and  supported  by  two  attendants,  the  very  impersona- 
tion of  an  old  revolutionary  soldier.  "My  young 
friends",  she  began  in  a  thin,  quavering  voice,  "this 
celebration  reminds  me  of  the  first  glorious  Fourth ; 
Washington  lived  then;  Adams  lived  then,  Franklin 
lived  then,  and  so  did  I.  I  was  in  all  the  important 
battles  of  the  war;  I  saw  Burgoyne  back  out  of  that 
Saratoga  Spring,  and  if  it  hadn't  been  for  a  mosquito 
that  flew  between  me  and  the  cannon's  mouth,  in  an- 
other engagement,  I  shouldn't  be  here  today.  Now 
what  do  I  see?     Three  millions  of  slaves  in  the  land 


34  GIRLHOOD. 

of  the  free !"  Then  she  proceeded  to  give,  no  doubt, 
excellent  advice  to  her  hearers  as  to  their  part  in 
present  emergencies. 

We  had  refreshments  as  became  the  day,  and 
toasts,  only  one  of  which  I  recall :  "Our  Band ;  may 
their  hearts  be  better  tuned  than  their  instruments !" 

I  know  it  all  ended  with  our  marching  in  long  pro- 
cession after  the  band  with  its  lugubrious  strains,  out 
into  the  street,  around  to  the  front  door,  which  you 
remember,  we  did  not  enter  on  ordinary  occasions, 
and  hanging  a  black  flag  out  of  the  parlor  window 
while  the  townspeople,  accustomed  as  they  were  to 
our  ways,  looked  on  and  wondered  what  could  be  go- 
ing on  at  the  Seminary!'' 

Thus  were  passed  the  four  years  of  the  happiest 
of  school  courses,  after  which  the  senior  of  seniors 
was  graduated  (1855),  with  the  high  honors  which 
she  richly  deserved,  leaving  an  impression  on  those 
sands  of  school-life  that  has  never  even  to  this  day 
worn  dim,  and  which  long  after  led  to  her  appoint- 
ment as  Principal  of  Castleton  Seminary,  and  the  con- 
ferring upon  her  by  I\It.  Holyoke  College  later  of  the 
Degree  of  ''Doctor  of  Letters";  indirectly  also  to  her 
election  as  Principal  of  Monticello  (18GT). 


III. 

EARLY  WOMANHOOD. 


The  year  after  graduation  was  spent  at  home, 
where  she  taught  at  soHcitation,  a  select  and  private 
class  of  pupils.  An  incident  of  a  brief  visit  to  Boston 
later  was  the  determinator  of  her  future  career.  Cas- 
ually seeing  a  notice  appointing  date  for  examination 
of  teachers  to  supply  vacancies  in  the  public  schools, 
without  saying  a  word  to  anybody  or  making  the 
slightest  preparation  for  such  an  ordeal,  she  presented 
herself  as  a  candidate  therefor,  though  she  had  not 
the  slightest  desire  or  intention  of  becoming  a  ''pro- 
fessional". Again  the  mere  suggestion  was  a  ''dare", 
and  she  only  wished  to  test  her  resources  educational. 
She  "passed",  not  brilliantly,  according  to  her  own  ac- 
count, but  was  much  surprised  by  a  request  from  the 
august  examiners  for  a  private  interview  after  other 
novices  were  dismissed.  Her  "personal  equation"  car- 
ried conviction  to  the  minds  of  her  interlocutors  that 
here  was  a  "rara  avis"  not  to  be  lightly  treated,  and  she 
was  doubly  astonished  when,  soon  after,  she  was  ap- 
pointed to  fill  a  vacancy  in  the  Franklin  school  caused 
by  the  resignation  of  the  lady  assistant  to  the  Head 
Master. 

Here  was  a  most  unexpected  issue,  but  with  juve- 
nile impetuosity  she  accepted  at  once.  There  was 
consternation  in  the  home  circle  at  her  rash  decision. 
Whv  and  wherefore  should  she  undertake  the  "hum- 


36  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

drum"  drudgery  of  the  teacher-habit,  but  as  "Home 
Rule"  in  her  special  case  had  never  been  a  marked 
success,  after  some  spirited  expostulation  she  was  al- 
lowed her  own  sweet  will,  gained  her  season  of  ap- 
prenticeship by  filling  the  position  satisfactorily,  but 
resigned  it  at  the  close  of  the  year,  returning  home 
for  the  wedding  of  her  sister,  who  was  married  in  the 
autumn  of  1857  to  Rev.  Samuel  Boardman,  D.  D.,  a 
native  of  Castleton,  Vt.,  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church  in  Norwich,  Vt.,  afterward  President  of  Mary- 
ville  College,  Tenn.,  and  now  residing  in  Bloomfield, 
N.  J.  She  had  won  her  "spurs",  and  "dubbed"  her- 
self Knightess-Errant  of  the  noblest  "order"  the  world 
has  ever  seen — second  only  (if  that)  to  canonized 
saints  of  the  church  militiant. 

She  was  seized  during  that  autumn  with  a  violent 
illness  (due  perhaps  to  more  nervous  strain  than  she 
realized  at  the  time),  and  convalesced  slowly  through 
the  early  winter.  Having,  however,  entirely  recovered, 
she  was  afterward  urged  to  take  charge  of  the  High 
School  in  her  home-town.  As  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  were  rather  pressing  and  peculiar  on  the  side 
of  the  conservators  of  public  instruction,  she  con- 
sented, and  again  made  for  herself  a  name  long  to  be 
remembered.  She  taught  "big  boys"  navigation, 
which  she  had  to  study  ahead  o'nights ;  she  won  them 
from  profane  language  and  coarse  habits ;  created  at- 
mospheres to  which  they  were  heretofore  total 
strangers ;  and  became  a  sort  of  Queen  Goddess  in 
their  "daily  walk  and  conversation". 

In   1859  she  met  her  first,  but  by  no  means  her 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  37 

last  overwhelming  grief,  in  the  loss  of  her  only  sis- 
ter, ever  in  previous  years  her  guide,  counselor  and 
friend.  For  though  so  different  temperamentally, 
the  two  were  beautifully  complementary  and  devot- 
edly attached — each  admiring  in  the  other  what  she 
herself  thought  she  lacked — the  one,  tall,  slender, 
graceful,  with  large  melting  blue  eyes  and  hair 
which  exactly  matched  a  gold  coin — the  other  sturdy 
and  strong;  the  one,  a  "model  child" — the  other,  a 
"harum-scarum"  (so  called));  the  one  a  woman  ex- 
quisite in  every  particular  both  of  body  and  mind,  as 
gentle  as  a  zephyr  from  the  south,  and  loved  accord- 
ingly— the  other  virile,  impulsive,  and  as  stimulating 
as  ocean  brine,  also  beloved  accordingly,  and  both  in 
Scripture  measure,  ''pressed  down,  shaken  together 
and  running  over",  love  and  admiration  in  each  case 
lasting  to  the  present  hour,  and  promising  to  endure 
as  long  as  any  are  alive  who  were  privileged  to  know 
them.  This  sorrow,  the  loss  of  the  elder  by  the 
younger,  greatly  enriched  and  mellowed  the  character 
of  the  latter.  As  was  universally  the  custom  at  the 
time,  she  adopted  the  black  garb  which  she  wore  ever 
after,  saying  if  there  was  reason  for  putting  it  on 
she  saw  no  reason  for  putting  it  off. 

Between  1859  and  1862  and  while  she  continued 
teaching  big  boys  and  girls  at  home,  the  deeps  of 
remembrance  were  stirring  in  Castleton,  as  the  right 
reverend  President  of  the  institution  had  resigned  on 
account  of  failing  health  and  super-abundant  length 
of  service.  Who  should  ''occupy"?  It  cannot  be 
recorded  through  exactly  what  agencies,  but  princi- 


38  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

pally  the  recommendation  of  the  then  President  of 
Middlebury  College,  \'t.,  who  had  heard  of  some  of 
her  ingenious  exploits,  the  position  was  tendered  to 
her  (1862).  She  was  to  be  aided  by  a  gentleman 
classical  teacher,  but  the  executive  "management" 
was  to  be  solely  her  own  devising.  It  was  a  formid- 
able bid !  A  young  woman  of  twenty-seven  to  suc- 
ceed a  masculine  veteran.  There  were  mutterings 
and  queries  in  camp.  "That  fly-away?  To  be  Princi- 
pal of  Castleton  Seminary?  Were  the  Trustees 
crazy?"  But  above  the  clamor  was  heard  the  sane 
voice  of  the  retiring  master  himself,  declaring  calmly : 
"She  is  equal  to  anything  she  herself  consents  to  un- 
dertake." Again  there  was  serious  consultation 
among  the  home  authorities.  Her  mother,  a  buoyant 
and  sunny  woman,  was  in  sympathetic  touch  with 
the  mettle  of  the  "child",  as  she  seemed  to  her,  while 
her  father,  thoroughly  understanding  her  ambition, 
gloried  in  her  "nerve" !  She  herself  had  tasted  the 
"nectar  and  ambrosia"  of  the  gods,  viz.,  power  to 
mould  and  lift  others  to  higher  aims  in  self-better- 
ment, and  was  not  to  be  deterred  from  any  task  be- 
cause there  were  lions  in  the  way. 

Therefore  she  girded  on  her  armor  of  endeavor, 
and  like  a  young  Amazon  took  the  field,  audaciously 
but  not  recklessly,  for  she  counted  the  cost  of  failure, 
setting  it  against  the  somewhat  problematic  chances 
of  success — a  delicate  calculus,  both  integral  and  dif- 
ferential. She  was  followed  to  Castleton  by  a  select 
contingent  of  Waldoboro  pupils  who  would  not  con- 
sent to  be  left  behind.     Once  decided,  there  was  no 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  39 

"halt"  in  her  steady  ongoing.  She  soon  captivated 
the  boys  by  her  ready  repartee  and  her  perfectly  fear- 
less grapple  with  the  situation.  She  was  not  afraid 
of  any  otie  of  them  nor  of  all  combined.  They  could 
not  "get  round"  her.  She  "got  round"  them  before 
they  comprehended  she  had  started  on  the  "war  path". 
They  could  not  "catch  her  napping",  for  she  was 
Argus-eyed;  a  "Scotland  Yard"  in  toto — a  secret  serv- 
ice agent  in  "plain  clothes" ! 

The  following  incident,  one  among  many  of  like 
nature,  may  serve  as  an  illustration.  One  tempestu- 
ous night,  fearing  leaks  at  top  of  the  house,  unat- 
tended, for  she  would  never  delegate  what  she  con- 
sidered her  responsibilities,  to  others,  she  made  a  tour 
of  observation,  "up  garret".  Having  finished  her  in- 
spection, as  she  turned  to  leave  she  noticed  a  streak 
of  light  through  an  aperture  in  the  loosely  boarded 
floor.  Fearing  fire  even  more  than  water,  she  pro- 
ceeded to  investigate,  and  found  said  opening  to  be 
directly  over  a  narrow  crack  in  the  ceiling  of  the  room 
below,  through  which  crack  she  discovered  playing 
cards  being  slapped  down  with  most  suspiciously 
scientific  precision  upon  a  table  of  which  the  center 
only  was  visible  to  her  naked  but  sufficiently  keen  eye. 
No  hands  were  in  evidence  as  human  agents  in  what 
seemed  a  very  animate  and  yet  inanimate  game.  Lo- 
cating the  room,  she  made  her  noiseless  way  thither, 
to  find  transom  carefully  covered,  key-hole  dexter- 
ously stuffed,  and  door  securely  locked  against  pos- 
sible police  intruders.  At  her  imperative  demand : 
"Open    here,"    there    was    a    smothered    shuffling   of 


40  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

something  more  substantial  than  cards  upon  a  table — 
slippered  feet,  but  not  on  "tufted  floor'' !  Some  hur- 
ried transformation  scene  was  evidently  in  progress. 
After  a  suitable  interval  a  hulking  youth  (a  minister's 
son,  by  the  way)  with  a  face  as  innocent  of  evil  as 
that  of  a  Southdown  sheep,  appeared  tardily  in  response 
to  her  repeated  summons,  and  she  was  courteously 
and  suavely  invited  to  "walk  in",  which  she  proceeded 
to  do  with  the  stately  tread  of  a  dowager  queen  on 
court  parade.  Had  Jeanne  d'Arc  with  her  conse- 
crated banner,  or  Boadicea  with  a  shining  helmet 
appeared  on  the  scene,  these  "ignoble  scions  of 
worthy  sires"  could  not  have  been  more  dismayed. 
But  why?  The  aspect  of  afifairs  was  ideally  acade- 
mic. No  astronomic  commission  absorbed  in  calcu- 
lating conditions  of  life  on  the  planet  Mars  could 
have  been  more  seriously  studential  or  more  appro- 
priately environed  for  literary,  scientific  and  classi- 
cal pursuits.  A  huge  Latin  lexicon  was  spread  in- 
vitingly open  at  one  corner  of  the  Jiozv  study,  not 
card  table.  Euclid  presented  lines  and  angles  both 
acute  and  obtuse  on  a  most  rumpled  and  disreputable 
page  under  the  troubled  eye  of  a  very  pre-occupied 
young  mathematician.  The  Anabasis  (Greek)  was 
propped  in  commanding  position,  where  the  ace  of 
spades  had  lately  reposed,  while  a  fourth  unhappy 
youth  seemed  engaged,  in  frantic  eflfort  to  vivisect  a 
Browning  or  some  other  equally  labored  poem.  Fol- 
lowing the  stern  demand:  "I  will  take  your  cards, 
young  gentlemen,"  was  a  silence  that  could  be  heard, 
as  Miltonic  darkness  could  be  seen!     Refusal  was  im- 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  41 

possible.  She  knew,  and  they  knew  she  knew,  but 
how?  Surrender  was  meek,  immediate  and  uncondi- 
tional, and  Venus  Victrix  departed  making  no  sign 
and  speaking  no  further  word.  The  next  morning 
before  Chapel  Prayer,  "Lead  us  not  into  temptation, 
but  deliver  us  from  evil,"  aforesaid  hulking  hero  of 
the  opening  door  appeared  penitentially  before  the 
"Mistress  of  the  Clause",  humbly  imploring  her  "not 
to  write  to  father!"  "I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind," 
she  replied.  "We  will  settle  the  matter  ourselves, 
Howard,"  looking  up  at  him  with  one  of  her  rarest 
smiles.  That  boy  was  her  sworn  champion  ever 
after.  Not  a  word  was  spoken  on  the  matter  further, 
but  card-playing  in  study  hours  became,  if  not  ab- 
solutely "nil",  a  very  minus  quantity. 

She  conquered  by  such  winning  methods  that  she 
challenged  every  inch  of  chivalry  in  the  masculine 
brain.  She  was  ambidextrous  in  the  management  of 
^'relations"  between  the  co-eds  both  in  the  house  and 
on  the  open  play-field,  called  campus.  There  were 
certain  unwritten  laws  but  no  revolt-provoking  code. 
"The  girls"  were  persuaded  to  refinement  of  bearing, 
fascinated  by  her  own  freedom  of  manner  and  sweet 
reasonableness  of  requirement..  There  was  some- 
times a  rather  harmless  and  sporadic  attempt  at  an 
escapade  "just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  you  know!" 
But  the  beauty  of  all  was  that  the  fun  came  in  at  the 
swift  and  sure  capture  of  the  escapaders,  a  capture 
so  adroit  and  sudden  that  it  was  rather  satisfying  to 
all  concerned. 

"Suspense"    was    more    often    the    "policy"    than 


I  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

[uick  retribution ;  also  silence  more  ominous  than 
peech  in  the  agonized  waiting  for  what  might  be, 
)ut  was  so  slow  in  coming.  When  she  did  speak, 
lowever,  there  was  a  blaze  in  the  blue  eye  and  a 
imbre  in  the  tone  that  nobody  cared  to  encounter 
he  second  time.  Notwithstanding  her  bonhommie 
;he  was  not  to  be  trifled  with. 

Her  career  of  five  years  in  Castleton  braced  her 
lerves,  broadened  her  judgment,  and  steadied  her 
uperabounding  vitality.  She  was  ivith  her  pupils 
md  for  them  every  one ;  never  of  them,  but  above, 
erenely,  securely,  always,  and  her  law  was  supreme 
)ver  and  beyond  any  rules  of  game  or  etiquette.  As 
I  botanist  analyzes  flowers  she  classified  but  also  in- 
iividualized  temperaments.  She  knew  where  to 
;trike,  but  also  how  to  glide — her  finesse  being  like 
ace,  variously  patterned.  The  veterans  who  "came 
;o  see",  or  rather  to  query,  grew  soon  satisfied  as  to 
ler  "grasp"  of  situation,  while  young  men  and 
maidens  all  knew  her  as  friend,  counsellor  and  queen. 
Her  reputation  gradually  became  the  state  property 
Df  Vermont,  and  it  was  to  this  fact  that  she  owed  her 
nvitation  to  the  larger  field,  then  rather  vaguely 
<nown  as  the  wild  and  woolly  West. 

Again  Middlebury  College  was  responsible 
:hrough  one  of  its  Faculty,  at  the  time  the  pioneer  of 
Congregationalism  in  St.  Louis,  and  also  President 
3f  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Monticello  Seminary, 
Godfrey,   111.,   Rev.   Truman   Post,   D.   D.     She  was. 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  43 

absolutely  declined  to  even  consider  the  proposition 
for  a  moment.  But  she  had  met  for  the  first  time  a 
match  determination,  and  was  at  last  prevailed  upon 
to  "view  the  landscape  o'er"  before  final  decision. 
She  went,  she  saw,  she  was  not  conquered.  Nothing 
pleased  her,  neither  school,  climate,  nor  educational 
outlook,  as  matters  were  then  conducted.  She  turned 
her  back  resolutely  upon  any  project  for  her  ultimate 
transfer  from  extreme  east  to  what  then  seemed  ex- 
treme west,  and  returned  to  Castleton,  as  she  thought, 
a  saner  and  wiser  woman,  much  to  the  delight  of  her 
admirers  there — parents,  pupils,  and  teachers. 
Everybody  considered  the  matter  settled,  except  the 
Trustees  of  Monticello,  who,  having  seen  on  their 
side,  were  determined  to  conquer  this  woman  of 
steel  and  sunshine ;  unanimously  elected  her  as  per- 
manent Principal  over  and  above  her  refusal  to  serve, 
sending  her  an  official  notification  of  this  rather  un- 
usual action,  which  made  her  pause  and  for  the  first 
time  waver! 

It  was  a  broader  field,  and  a  wider  opportunity. 
She  would  miss  her  boys,  but  girls  would  become 
mothers  who  should  train  the  men  of  the  Middle 
West.  The  idea  grew  by  what  it  was  made  to  feed 
upon  in  more  and  more  urgent  letters  from  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley.  She  not  only  paused,  but  pondered. 
It  was  now  become  clear  that  she  had  found  her  'Vo- 
cation", that  of  teaching  and  training  other  women's 
children.  It  was  strange,  but  it  grew  more  and  more 
melodious — the  music  of  that  name  Monticello — 
Mount  of  Heaven — by  the  bank  of  that  great  western 


44  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

water  way !  Illinois  College  was  graduating  stal- 
wart young  men — country  girls,  unlettered,  though 
never  so  sweet  and  charming,  would  not  make  suit- 
able brides.  Capt.  Benjamin  Godfrey,  founder  of  the 
Seminary,  was  right,  and  its  prosperous  existence  for 
then  nearly  thirty  years  proved  the  wisdom  of  his 
forethought.  Bereft  of  its  first  talented  leader  by  her 
resignation,  there  was  an  imperative  demand  for  a 
secorfd.  She  had  been  chosen,  and  confirmed  in  the 
most  positive  manner.  It  was  not  now  should  she, 
but  ought  she  to  resist  obstinately  what  might  be  a 
Providential  indication?  It  was  a  struggle,  but  the 
west  was  to  win  against  the  east.  She  accepted  the 
position,  but  with  the  definite  proviso  that  she  was 
to  choose  her  own  teachers,  be  left  entirely  unhamp- 
ered in  the  management  of  internal  affairs,  and  be 
judged  by  results  only  after  a  fair  trial  of  her 
''methods",  which  she  foresaw  would  difter  materially 
from  those  of  the  former  regime,  not  necessarily  be- 
cause they  were  so  much  better,  for  though  confident, 
she  was  not  overwnst  in  her  own  conceit,  but  because 
they  were  different,  and  therefore  might  prove  stimu- 
lating. 

Her  conditions  were  accepted,  but  it  was  not  with- 
out "qualms"  that  in  the  late  summer  she  appeared 
upon  the  ground.  It  was  vacation — the  big  stone 
house  was  desolate  and  empty  save  for  the  matron 
and  her  few  assistant  caretakers.  The  climate  was 
debilitating  for  a  woman  New  England  breeze-blown. 
The  weather  was  exhaustingly  hot,  the  roads  dust- 
buried,  the   broad  Father  of  Waters   narrowed   to  a 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  45 

rivulet  of  what  might  have  been  muddy  coffee — not 
Hke  the  rock-bound  rills  of  Maine  or  the  singing  cas- 
cades of  the  Green  Mountain  State.  The  lay-out  of 
both  work  and  landscape  was  most  dispiriting  and 
depressing  to  anybody  who  did  not  generate  her  own 
oxygen.  She  groaned  but  once.  On  retiring  the  first 
evening  after  her  arrival,  hearing  the  shrill  whistle  of 
the  eastern-bound  express,  she  exclaimed :  ''Go  on, 
old  train !"  Then  she  resolutely  set  her  face  to  her 
task  and  never  faltered  once  again. 

The  school,  owing  to  no  fault  of  interregnum 
management,  which  was  as  sagacious  as  possible,  but 
to  the  inevitable  vicissitudes  of  any  transition  period, 
was  somewhat  unsettled  as  to  its  future  ongoing. 
Traditions  of  "disorders"  floated  in  the  air,  very 
much  exaggerated,  no  doubt!  The  ''Alton  boys" 
were  reported,  not  in  the  saddle,  but  in  buggies  galore, 
as  the  Monticello  girls  went  across  the  road  to  church 
on  Sundays.  With  handkerchiefs  tied  to  whip 
handles,  these  gallants  saluted  the  fair  procession, 
making  a  lane  for  its  passage  through  their  valorous 
and  self-appointed  ranks.  What  would  the  new 
Principal  do  in  such  extraordinary  premises?  She 
ow/lined  or  rather  mlined  her  policy  at  once,  the  ani- 
mus of  which  was,  making  "Chevalier  Bayards"  of 
the  Alton  boys ;  persuade  to  her  way  of  thinking,  the 
Monticello  girls.  To  formulate  was  with  her  to  act 
briskly,  fearlessly,  but  with  caution,  unseen  at  the  til- 
ler. She  therefore  arranged  a  weekly  afternoon  "re- 
ception" for  the  hoys,  threw  open  the  parlors,  played 
the  role  of  hostess  herself,  introducing  the  girls  and 


46  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

making  all  go  merry  during  the  appointed  hour. 
Many  elders  shook  their  heads  and  looked  askance, 
but  they  had  promised  not  to  interfere. 

The  "new  departure"  next  organized  a  large 
young  men's  Bible  Class  to  be  holden  in  the  gallery 
of  the  church,  with  herself  as  instructor.  Both 
schemes  worked  even  beyond  expectation.  The  ''re- 
ceptions" being  an  allowed  pleasure  and  having  no 
subtle  charm  of  the  dis-aWowedy  gradually  dwindled 
by  their  own  default,  until  they  were  discontinued  be- 
cause so  few  availed  themselves  of  such  a  simple  and 
stated  privilege.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  Class 
increased  in  numbers  and  vivid  interest ;  as  there  are 
those  living  at  present  who  will  thus  testify.  The  in- 
structor was  young,  and  interesting  moreover.  She 
handled  religious  themes  in  a  new  way,  finding  many 
opportunities  of  presenting  more  lofty  ideals  of  be- 
havior than  had  before  been  considered,  even  had 
they  been  taught  both  in  home  and  pulpit.  Her  per- 
fectly familiar  and  yet  sufficiently  dignified  manner 
was  like  a  *'sea-turn"  in  a  sultry  afternoon.  She 
encouraged  but  controlled  discussion,  allowed  free 
expression,  but  insisted  that  it  be  refined  and  reverent. 
A  novel  method  this,  choking  "wild  oats"  by  a  young 
man's  Bible  Class. 

In  the  meantime  she  was  making  herself  mistress 
of  the  family  and  school  household.  Some  teachers 
who  had  been  held  over  from  the  earlier  regime  were 
a  little  in  doubt  as  to  her  free  and  easy  manner  in 
dealing  with  both  major  and  minor  transgressions, 
but   the   issues   thereof   were   so   sound,   so   sane,   so 


EARLY    WOMANHOOD.  47 

wholesome,  that  her  decisions  became  finalities  with 
no  further  question.  Things  settled  into  orderly 
though  liberal  courses,  and  very  soon  the  vigor  and 
wisdom  as  well  as  the  sweetness  of  the  new  adminis- 
tration were  generously  recognized,  even  by  those  at 
first  most  quizzical.  The  goodness  in  her  face,  the 
evident  sincerity  and  elevated  purity  of  her  purpose, 
disarmed  criticism,  which  she  ever  met  with  such 
good-humored  argument  that  she  generally  proved 
her  way  the  best  under  the  circumstances  of  the  par- 
ticular situation  under  discussion.  She  was  slow, 
very  slow,  almost  "impossibV  to  wrath,  even  under 
extreme  provocation ;  allowed  other  persons  the  free- 
dom of  their  opinions,  which  she  regarded,  but  she 
could  not  be  blown  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine. 
She  held  that  the  "ultimatum"  must  rest  with  her,  as 
she  shouldered  and  was  prepared  to  meet  the  responsi- 
bihty  of  her  acts.  All  this  time,  in  her  young 
womanhood  of  the  thirties,  she  was  inaugurating  and 
establishing  her  splendid  administration  which  was 
to  render  Monticello  a  "loveliness",  the  spell  of  which 
was  never  broken  by  the  complex  inrush  of  after 
years. 

Hers  was  ideal  living,  so  pure,  so  winsome  wise, 
It  seemed  a  wonder-study,  continuous  in  surprise ; 
Her  very  touch  was  tonic — exhilarant  as  wine — 
With  magnetism  richer  than  blood  of  royal  line. 
She  carried   wealth  of   sunshine  in   every   word   and 

look; 
Her  heart  read  like  the  pages  of  an  illumined  book; 


48  EARLY    WOMANHOOD. 

Her  loz'C  was  sure  as  roses  beneath  the  skies  of  June  ; 
Her  counsels  were  as  mellow  as  measures  of  a  tune. 
Her  faith   was   steady   beacon   o'er   life's   tumultuous 

brine, 
Or  steadfast  as  the  needles  of  any  mountain  pine; 
Her  hope  glowed  like  a  ruby  'neath  blaze  of  morning 

light, 
Or  as  an  emerald  flashes  'mid  tapers  of  the  night. 
She  was  at  one  with  pleasure,  yet  in  accord  with  grief. 
She  saw  in  each  soul-model  both  low  and  high  relief; 
As  buoyant  as  a  paean,  but  serious  as  a  prayer, 
She  knew  related  values  and  gave  to  each  its  share. 
As    generous    as    sea-foam — her   "mine''    was    always 

"thine", 
She  "sealed"  no  private  treasures  with  cabalistic  sign  I 
The  fires  were  ever  burning  upon  her  vestal  shrine 
That  made  her  liberal  giving  seem  privilege  divine. 


IV. 
MATURITY. 


To  some,  life  in  a  retired  educational  institution 
is  a  boring  monotony;  to  others,  "green  pasture"  be- 
side ''still  waters".  Neither  can  be  adequately  de- 
scribed except  for  those  who,  having  experienced,  can 
read  between  as  well  as  behind  the  lines.  For  some 
there  is  in  school  life  a  haunting  charm;  the  quiet 
atmospheres,  the  regular  hours,  the  musical  clamor  of 
bells  calling  to  appointed  duties,  the  "sweet  security 
of  books",  the  crowding  young  and  eager  faces,  the 
communion  with  refined  and  cultivated  teachers,  the 
morning  chapel,  the  even  song,  all  invite  to  reposeful 
but  not  inactive  living,  which  has  a  character  of  its 
own;  yet  does  not  lend  itself  to  dramatic  treatment. 

To  delineate  the  home-school  animus  prevailing  at 
Monticello  in  its  entirety,  or  even  in  its  half-tones, 
seems  a  sort  of  sacrilegious  endeavor.  A  water-color- 
ist  rather  than  a  cartoonist  should  undertake  it,  and 
even  then,  the  result  might  be  only  a  smattered  daub 
of  smudgy  dyes.  Though  so  secluded,  it  was  a  world- 
wide life,  with  poets,  philosophers,  scientists  and 
saints.  It  was  "Hamlet  played  a  hundred  nights",  but 
a  new  Hamlet  every  time,  and  to  a  fresh  audience  each 
year,  but  never  a  Hamlet  "left  out" !  Monotonous  ? 
— oh  no ;  never !  with  such  a  versatile  woman  at  the 
fore.  Never  "flat,  stale  or  unprofitable",  she  was  now 
a  larger  classic,  not  only  of  the  wwexpected,  but  a  "de 


50  MATURITY. 

luxe"  edition  of  the  assured.  She  knezv  her  force,  and 
was  built  to  ride  rough  as  well  as  shining  seas,  as 
future  events  will  testify.  She  was  not  only  the  pre- 
siding genius,  she  was  the  permeating  presence  of  the 
house.  Platform  and  parlor  knew  her  presence,  but 
also  kitchen  and  door-yard ;  the  spreading  campus  in 
front  and  the  out-lying  farm  behind  were  equally  fa- 
miliar to  her  keen  and  busy  oversight.  Xot  only 
teachers  and  scholars,  but  helpers  **of  every  sort  and 
condition"  masculine  or  feminine,  had  the  freest  ac- 
cess to  her  ready  ear  and  her  genuine  heart-interest. 
She  never  forgot  petty  but  after  all  most  significant 
attentions  to  those  ''below  stairs",  and  made  every  "at- 
tachee"  of  the  establishment  feel  jealous  of  its  honor 
and  her  sagacious  supervision. 

There  was  no  frigid  or  torrid  in  her  consistent  be- 
havior, no  trap-doors  (crotchets)  in  her  disposition,  no 
sulky  days  in  her  calendar,  for  she  dwelt  always  in 
temperate  zones.  It  was  all  "Queen's  weather".  Irri- 
tants found  no  place  in  her  pharmacoepia.  Her  morn- 
ing greeting  to  the  school  both  in  dining-room  and  at 
chapel  swept  frowns  from  every  brow,  and  cobwebs 
from  every  brain,  and  set  the  "tempo"  for  the  day. 
She  never  dismissed  the  girls  from  opening  exercise 
without  some  tonic  note  of  moral  uplift,  either  by 
story  or  poem,  or  witty  suggestion  of  her  own. 

She  was  a  "raconteur  royale" !  But  her  tales 
were  not  hackneyed  repetitions,  because  she  rarely 
told  them  twice  alike,  but  (like  Browning's  Ring  and 
Book)  from  so  many  varied  points  of  view,  as  wit- 
ness  her   tragi-comedy  of  the   "Burning   Bed"    from 


MATURITY.  51 

which  she  was  so  miraculously  rescued  by  her  heroic 
pater  when  an  infant  twelve  hours  old.  Every 
Monticello  girl  remembers  that  story,  for  bemg  re- 
lated from  the  different  observation-point  of  every 
actor  in  the  drama — father,  mother,  nurse,  and  all 
touched  up  by  her  own  mature  reflections,  so  humor- 
ously set  forth,  it  was  often  presented  in  the  Monti- 
cello  Drury  Lane  as  Tragedy,  Comedy,  Epic,  Lyric, 
Fable  and  Real  Life  founded  on  fact!  But  though 
a  brilliant  Arabian  Nights  Scheherezade,  there  was 
underlying  every  tale  a  sound  substructure  of  moral 
granitoide,  while  "Haec  Fabula  Docet"  was  never 
forgotten.  The  most  salutary  lessons  of  honor,  cour- 
age, good  cheer,  teachableness,  filtered  into  the  minds 
of  the  listeners  as  mountain  rivulets  percolate  the 
sands  of  arid  plains  by  scientific  irrigation,  and  the 
young  audience  departed,  unaware  that  they 
had  been  ''preached  to"  or  listening  to  a  "sermon" 
with  variegated  text.  Such  sub-conscious  ethics  be- 
came  strong  strata  in  many  a  character,  saving  it 
from  disintegration  even  in  later  years. 

Though  this  usual  serenity  of  life  was  sometimes 
stirred  by  eddies  and  currents  of  minor  disaster,  they 
disturbed  but  for  a  moment,  because  so  thoroughly 
understood  to  be  but  bubbles  on  the  overflow.  Two 
very  serious  calamities,  however,  did  overtake  and 
almost  paralyze  for  the  time  being ;  viz. :  trials  by 
fire;  the  first  the  perilous  and  nearly  fatal  accident 
of  her  own  burning  while  impersonating  Santa  Claus 
one  Christmas;  the  second,  total  destruction  by  flame 
of  what  is   now  called  the   old  building,   which  had 


U.  OF  ILL  LIBe 


52  MATURITY. 

been  repaired  and  renovated  to  the  limit  of 
possibility.  The  personal  agony  of  the  first  test  of 
faith  and  patience  she  met  with  all  the  fortitude 
which  might  have  been  expected  from  a  person  of 
her  equable  temperament,  but  the  second  was  a  much 
severer  ordeal.  To  stand  helplessly  by,  and  see  the 
fruits  of  toilsome  years  vanish  in  smoke  between  ten 
P.  M.  and  ten  A.  M.  the  next  morning,  could  not  but 
make  her  stout  heart  quiver  to  the  core.  The  new 
library  cases,  the  new  stairways  from  top  to  bottom 
of  the  house,  and  all  just  completed,  swept  to  ashes 
in  the  quiet  beauty  of  a  November  night.  She  did 
steal  behind  a  tree  and  drop  a  solitary  tear,  and  that 
was  the  sole  unit-measure  of  her  grief. 

Then  she  set  her  splendid  self  toward  rescue  and 
rehabilitation,  with  such  magnificent  resolve  that  no 
opposition  could  daunt,  or  discouragement  "down" 
her.  She  now  proved  herself  equal  to  a  crisis.  The 
steady  running  of  the  school  heretofore  seemed  al- 
most a  matter  of  its  own  inertia,  but  now  came  a 
jolt  that  was  to  try  to  the  uttermost  the  nerve  of 
the  hand  at  the  helm !  A  woman's  hand  at  that ! 
The  insurance  not  by  any  means  covering  the  loss, 
the  usual  troop  of  disconcerting  questions  pressed 
into  the  foreground.  Was  it  zvorth  while  to  rebuild? 
Would  patronage  continue  and  pupils  be  returned 
after  such  an  overwhelming  calamity?  Could  the 
chasm  be  bridged  soon  enough  to  "save  the  state"? 
There  were  also  attendant  ifs,  buts,  ahs,  ohs,  the 
"little  foxes  that  eat  the  vines". 

How  she  answered  these  queries  by  the  swift  erec- 


MATURITY.  53 

tion  of  the  temporary  building,  thus  for  two  years 
holding  the  school  together,  issuing  the  usual  cata- 
logues, and  graduating  the  Senior  Classes,  is  too  well 
known  to  need  detailed  repetition  here.  "Get  under 
a  bush,  Miss  Haskell,  and  we'll  come  back  to  you," 
was  the  pledge  of  the  out-going  crowd  as  the  smoke 
of  the  holocaust  ascended  to  heaven,  and  the  pledge 
was  more  than  doubly  redeemed.  Encouragement 
and  substantial  help  came  at  first  call,  from  devoted 
alumnae,  friends  "at  large",  and  one  particular  bene- 
factor who  may  be  mentioned  in  passing  as  a  member 
of  the  aforesaid  Bible  Class.  All  this  has  been  re- 
hearsed many  times,  but  never  has  been,  and  perhaps 
never  can  be  related,  the  superb  poise  of  the  victor  in 
the  fight — victor  from  first  to  last,  from  smoking  ashes 
to  palace  towers. 

No  person  not  upon  the  ground  could  ever  realize 
the  patient  vigilance  brooding  over  the  new  construc- 
tion. She  knew  by  heart  as  well  as  head  the  lay  of 
every  beam,  the  span  of  every  arch,  the  lift  of  every 
column  from  turret  to  foundation-stone.  Nothing 
escaped  her  watchful  eye,  and  midnights  often,  as 
well  as  meridians,  were  her  "working  hours".  Vaca- 
tions as  well  as  school  sessions  kept  her  on  steady 
duty.  Obstacles  numerous,  irritations  manifold  as 
plagues  of  Egypt,  could  not  shake  her  Gibraltar  of 
equanimity.  The  workmen  marvelled  greatly  at  her 
invariable  good-nature  in  the  face  of  exasperating  de- 
lays, and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Monticello  must 
be  "aisy  on  the  heart"  with  such  a  cheery  woman  at 
the  head!     But  the  end  crowned  the  work,  and  the 


54  MATURITY. 

glorious  fruition  following  has  continued  from  the 
dedication  day  to  the  present  hour  in  the  shape  of 
an  overflowing  school  crowding  from  year  to  year  the 
halls  and  corridors  of  an  educational  temple  worthy 
of  an  Athenian  Acropolis.  Though  so  often  prophe- 
sied that  she  must  collapse  when  she  could  say,  "It 
is  finished,"  nothing  of  the  kind  happened,  and  she 
lived  to  grace  what  she  had  so  skilfully  builded ;  to 
enjoy  the  result  brought  to  pass  by  brain  toil  and 
heart  petition. 

Monticello's  ''golden  age"  was  now  in  the  ascend- 
ant, for  its  preserver  was  in  her  splendid  prime.  The 
mellowing  beauty  of  her  chastened  administration  is 
too  subtly  elusive  for  words.  Beside  her  morning 
greeting  to  the  school  there  were  her  prayers  after 
evensong  in  the  dining-room,  the  sacred  hush  of 
which  at  that  hour  can  never  be  forgotten  by  any 
student  or  teacher  who  ever  enjoyed  the  precious 
privilege  of  that  devotional  period ;  those  petitions 
so  simple,  so  brief,  so  sincere ;  a  litany  of  spontane- 
ous eloquence ;  in  a  language  that  the  smallest  and 
weakest  could  understand — sometimes  scarcely  a  cry 
of  aspiration,  again  a  sweep  of  fervid  inspiration.  It 
is  here  "in  order"  to  appeal  to  every  listener,  who 
held  her  breath  to  catch  every  accent  of  devotion. 
Who  can  ever  forget  the  familiar  hymn-tunes  as  night 
after  night  they  floated  "sweet  and  low"  yet  marvel- 
ously  distinct  to  the  farthest  corner  of  the  rooms? 

A  third  most  notable  point  of  regular  contact 
with  those  under  her  charge  was  the  Sunday  morning 
service,  which  she  generally  conducted  after  the  with- 


MATURITY.  55 

drawal  of  the  Institution  from  church  services  across 
the  way.  Here  she  was  matchless,  as  none  can  ever 
know  who  were  not  there  to  hearken.  In  her  pubHc 
ministration  she  never  had  the  ''fictitious  type  of 
bearing",  "the  air  of  omniscience",  the  trick  of  pedan- 
try, the  slavish  conventionality  and  above  all  the  me- 
tallic, raucous  voice  of  the  "cut  and  dried  ''teacher" ! 
Every  "talk"  was  a  cameo!  Not  only  were  the 
youngest  of  her  auditors  always  ready  listeners,  ar- 
rested by  her  clear  and  chaste  expression,  but  the  old- 
est also  were  as  much  surprised  as  edified  by  what 
seemed  specially  addressed  to  their  mature  intelli- 
gence. The  wonder  grew  as  to  how  she  touched  both 
poles  with  the  wand  of  communicated  thought.  The 
voice — never  lifted  above  middle  registers — carried 
like  flute  notes,  melodious  and  thrilling;  the  ideas 
were  crystal,  for  she  rarely  spoke  enigmas  to  the 
young.  Her  devotional  temperament  (an  astonish- 
ment to  many  who  had  previously  seen  her  only  on 
the  secular  side)  was  then  at  high  tide.  She  was 
moderate,  self-contained,  and  serene,  though  convinc- 
ing to  a  finish,  and  as  earnest  as  the  prayer  of  the 
publican,  breast-smitten  and  contrite.  She  was  not 
and  did  not  desire  to  be  heard  for  her  ''much" ,  but 
her  honest  speaking.  She  was  the  same  hearty,  gen- 
uine woman  on  her  home  platform  as  in  her  private 
library  with  familiar  friends.  She  knew  not  "airs," 
but  she  abounded  in  "graces" ! 

Her  charities  were  "ships  that  passed  in  the  night" 
— not  pageants  that  moved  in  the  sunlight.  The  se- 
crets of  her  private  purse  were  not  open  secrets  to 


56  MATURITY. 

any  save  beneficiaries,  and  not  always  known  even  to 
them.  Many  a  class  pin  or  graduating  gown  seemed 
to  drop  from  heaven  like  the  manna  of  the  Israelities, 
while  the  bestowal  of  the  gift  was  so  graciously  man- 
aged that  obligation  was  not  so  much  a  burden  un- 
bearable as  a  blessing  unspeakable. 

She  never  had  the  manner  dictatorial,  nor  carried 
the  stiff  "dignity  of  authority".  She  zi'as  authority. 
Most  considerate  was  this  Principal  of  both  the  rights 
and  feelings  of  her  teachers — always  allowing  each  a 
"free  hand"  in  work,  and  only  judging  it  as  she  her- 
self demanded  to  be  judged,  by  results.  She  recog- 
nized, however,  every  individual  method,  though  with 
no  appearance  of  surveillance,  and  would  not  have  em- 
ployees about  her  made  uncomfortable  by  the  adverse 
and  nagging  criticism  of  those  who  thought  they 
could  do  it  better !  Every  teacher  was  to  have  the 
entire  swing  of  her  own  circuit,  subject  of  course  to 
delicate  suggestions,  but  not  to  rasping  censure.  If 
a  subordinate  proved  unsatisfactory  she  was  not  re- 
tained, but  she  was  not  to  be  hampered  to  any  verge 
of  nervous  prostration  while  she  remained.  Full 
scope  was  given  to  originality  of  scheme,  and  no 
method  was  tabooed  because  unusual,  if  it  proved  ef- 
fective. 

Though  self-contained  and  apparently  beyond  pos- 
sibility of  tremor,  she  was  modest  in  self-estimate 
when  required  by  the  duties  of  her  position  to  put 
herself  in  the  public  view.  Once  there,  however,  she 
bore  herself  proudly,  grandly,  and  yet  with  a  meek- 
ness   that    in    itself    was    might    impregnable.     Even 


MATURITY.  57 

more  than  mothers,  she  impressed  fathers,  who  often 
came  to  visit  their  daughters  on  Sundays,  because 
then  released  from  business  cares.  As  a  matter  of 
courtesy  they  attended  Chapel  service,  manifesting 
some  measure  of  curiosity  as  to  its  character.  It  was 
easy  for  an  observer  to  watch  curiosity  merge  into 
close  attention,  close  attention  into  aroused  interest, 
aroused  interest  into  electric  sympathy,  electric  sym- 
pathy into  discriminating  admiration,  as  they  recog- 
nized the  breadth  and  the  uplift,  and  better  still  the 
logical  proportions  of  her  simple  yet  astute  discourse. 
Her  personnel  was  here  exhibited  at  finest  advantage. 
She  was  not  a  beautiful  but  she  was  a  handsome 
woman — sometimes  said  to  resemble  Susan  B.  An- 
thony, a  rather  plain  one,  also  Mrs.  Mary  Livermore, 
an  unusually  imposing  matron.  But  strange  though 
it  may  appear,  neither  woman  resembled  her,  for  here 
was  something  beyond  and  above  either.  She  used 
to  humorously  relate  that  when  Senior  at  Holyoke 
she  met  an  old  gentleman,  who  on  being  introduced, 
remarked:  "My  dear,  you  strongly  resemble  Mary 
Lyon,"  then  pausing  meditatively  he  most  innocently 
added:  "I  think  Mary  Lyon  the  homeliest  woman  / 
ever  saw."  He  must  have  been  "sand  blind"  like 
old  Lancelot! 

As  has  been  remarked,  though  not  beautiful  in  tie 
ordinary  sense,  our  patron  saint  possessed  distinctum, 
which  does  not  fade,  but  is  often  accentuated  by 
passage  of  years.  Strangers  looking  at  her 
turned  to  look  again  and  inquire,  ''Who  is 
-she?     Some   public   woman,   of   course!"     Her   hair 


58  MATURITY. 

brushed  smoothly  off  her  broad  brow,  and  below  her 
ears  to  knot  at  nape  of  the  neck,  displayed  the  dome 
of  her  fine  head,  which  she  playfully  called  her  "ad- 
ministration dome"  (as  indeed  it  was).  Her  chin  was 
firm  and  square.  Her  nose,  Napoleonic,  was  her 
most  classic  feature,  its  fine  thin  nostril  quivering  as 
did  that  of  Marie  Antoinette,  when  indignant  or  scorn- 
ful. Her  head  was  royally  set  on  her  white,  columnar 
neck,  as  the  bust  so  truly  represents,  and  her  eye  was 
ever  telling  the  fervid  emotions  of  her  heart,  or  the 
racing  thoughts  of  her  active  brain.  She  was  not 
tall,  though  always  so  described  because  her  erect 
and  spirited  carriage  gave  that  universal  impression, 
and  it  was  not  until  standing  beside  a  really  tall 
woman  that  it  became  apparent  she  was  not  much 
above  medium  height.  In  middle  life,  and  this  picture 
is  drawn  from  that  view  point,  her  attire  was  black 
always,  which  best  suited  her  fair  complexion ;  her 
garb  was  simple  and  ever  adapted  to  time  and  occa- 
sion, though  so  regardless  in  mere  matters  of  dress 
was  she  that  it  was  sometimes  well  that  she  was  su- 
perintended by  her  watchful  friends,  while  her  pre- 
occupied mind  was  on  much  higher  things  intent. 
She  was  absorbed  in  what  she  was  saying,  and  not 
thinking  of  garments  she  was  wearing  or  how  she 
was  looking  in  the  mirror  of  other  minds. 

There  were  no  dregs  in  the  spicy  wine  of  her  con- 
versation, for  she  did  not  deal  with  commonplaces. 
Though  she  appeared  not  only  to  lead  but  to  dominate 
social  converse  wherever  she  was  present,  it  was 
mainly  because  everybody   willingly   waited   and  list- 


MATURITY.  59 

ened  for  her  wit  and  wisdom,  so  spontaneous  but 
never  crowding. 

A  word  should  be  said  in  passing  concerning  her 
letters.  She  did  not  consider  herself  a  satisfactory- 
correspondent,  because  she  said  she  had  no  time  or  in- 
clination in  that  line  after  her  numerous  business  ob- 
ligations. She  was  therefore  rather  impatient  even 
of  letters  received,  especially  if  they  were  illegibly 
written,  and  would  toss  them  to  others  to  decipher. 
But  for  all  she  was  absolute  mistress  of  her  trenchant 
pen. 

It  has  been  said  that,  though  man  excels  in  humor, 
no  man  is  ever  a  match  for  a  witty  zvoman.  Whether 
the  latter  be  true  as  a  general  statement,  it  was  surely 
often  proved  in  her  case,  for  many  a  carping  pater- 
familias has  gone  down  before  her  return  sally.  She 
tvas  laconic  as  a  Spartan,  and  knew  just  how  to  fea- 
ther a  sharp  criticism  with  a  so  much  sharper  jest 
that  the  honors  were  much  more  than  ''even",  and  she 
retired  triumphantly  on  the  'last  word"  because  it 
was  likely  to  settle  the  question  with  a  laugh  from  the 
opponent. 

She  could  and  did,  however,  write  a  model  of  ep- 
istolary style,  because  her  whole  heart  was  in  what- 
ever she  did,  without  reserve  or  affectation,  and  she 
always  had  something  to  say  that  struck  nerve  cen- 
tres and  vitalized  the  sympathies  of  the  reader.  She 
never  "composed",  but  turned  off  at  white  heat  what- 
ever was  uppermost  in  her  brain  domain.  Her  hand- 
writing was  indicative  of  her  directness,  strong  and 
firm,  with  no  suspicion  of  the  copy  book  or  painstak- 


GO  MATURITY. 

ing,  but  denoting  virility  and  ease,  even  to  the  verge 
of  an  independent  and  noble  carelessness,  for  she  al- 
ways wrote  in  haste  with  the  next  duty  crowding  from 
behind. 

vShe  was  "original"  both  in  thought  and  expres- 
sion, her  ideas  fresh  from  the  virgin  soil  of  her  own 
contemplation.  She  read  slozvly,  pausing  frequently 
in  some  dream  revery  of  her  own,  or  as  if  making 
acquaintance  with  new  ideas  which  she  received,  as 
it  were,  "on  probation"  until  they  should  prove  them- 
selves belonging  to  the  peerage  of  thought.  She  did 
not  skim  easily,  busy  woman  as  she  was,  but  plodded 
industriously,  dreaming  her  own  dreams  between 
paragraphs,  and  brooding  meanwhile  her  own  embry- 
onic ideas. 

The  writer  can  here,  as  previously,  fancy  the 
reader  asking,  had  she  then  no  faults?  If  so — pass  them 
over :  they  were  like  inequalities  on  the  smoothest 
sphere  of  the  roundest  orange.  If  so,  they  were  so 
overlain  with  "sweetness  and  light"  that  they  were 
scarcely  discernible.  The  virtues,  the  loving-kind- 
nesses, were  so  in  the  van  of  any  remnant  of  a  "rag- 
ged regiment  of  errors",  that  they  outshone  as  ban- 
ners do  the  victorious  troop  of  an  invading  army. 
She  was  abrupt  sometimes  when  preoccupied  or 
anxious — deaf  sometimes  when  she  did  not  unsh  to 
hear,  because  absorbed  in  some  out-lying  province  of 
speculation ;  called  ahscnt-mm(\td  as  to  the  present, 
when  she  was  really  present-mindtd  as  to  some  past 
from  which  she  was  drawing  lessons  which  should 
guide  and  guard  her  future.     She  had  a  way  of  ig- 


MATURITY.  61 

noring  petty  things  which  seemed  big  things  to  others, 
and  rolled  them  lightly  off  as  one  tosses  pebbles  aside 
on  the  shore  of  the  ocean.  This  sometimes  subjected 
her  to  narrow  criticism,  until  the  critics  themselves  dis- 
covered that  their  eye-beams  were  only  motes  in  the 
sunshine  of  a  more  dispassionate  judgment.  Did  she 
never  make  mistakes?  Was  it  impossible  for  her 
to  blunder  when  trying  some  of  her  novel  experi- 
ments? Right  here,  dear  interrogators,  she  was 
grandest  of  all.  She  met  a  mistake  frankly,  gave  it 
the  "right  hand  of  fellowship"  as  having  served  its 
purpose  as  a  bit  of  necessary  experience,  and  with  a 
"wink  of  consanguinity"  passed  it  on  as  a  finale  never 
to  be  repeated.  She  refused  to  be  disheartened  by 
that  which  could  not  be  undone;  recognizing  a  mis- 
judgment  as  a  disciplinarian  not  to  be  disregarded; 
she  bowed  regretfully,  but  passed  on  courageously. 

It  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  describe  her  as  a 
teacher,  not  so  much  of  the  jargon  of  conflicting 
books  as  of  the  harmonies  possible  in  one's  own  soul. 
Her  unconscious  ^^//-revelation  was  a  better  educator 
than  the  compendiums  of  schools.  She  was  a  lover 
not  of  her  task,  but  her  art  the  noblest  on  earth,  the 
moulding  of  ductile  natures  into  the  fixed  but  grace- 
ful curves  of  established  womanhood.  Higher  even 
than  curriculums  for  men  were  her  formulas  for  those 
who  were  to  be  mothers  of  men — the  power  behind 
and  beneath  every  scheme  that  has  rocked  the  world, 
every  beneficence  that  has  tended  toward  its  salvation. 
She  never  belittled  the  responsibilities  of  those  who 
had  girls  in  their  holy  keeping — holier  perhaps,  be- 


62  MATURITY. 

cause  more  impartial  than  the  tenderest  care  of  the 
woman  who  bore  them. 

And  yet  she  was  merry  withal,  and  genuinely,  not 
perfunctorily,  sympathetic  with  youth  in  all  its  phases, 
its  illusions,  its  follies  and  frolics,  its  vanities  even, 
in  a  wise  way.  She  cured  not  so  much  by  caustic  re- 
buke as  by  a  mild  ridicule,  not  sarcastic  or  censorious, 
wounding  and  hurting  more  than  it  healed,  but  so 
subtly  humorous,  and  so  spontaneously  witty,  that  the 
laughter  it  provoked  was  a  sure  antidote  to  the  petty 
vice  under  not  the  scalpel  of  the  surgeon,  but  the 
burin  of  the  deft  etcher.  For  grave  offences  she  was 
capable  of  severe,  even  scathing  rebuke,  which  she 
rarely  visited  upon  culprits  in  full  measure,  for  she 
did  not  believe  in  too  drastic  methods,  even  for  the 
most  wayward,  judging  them  perhaps  to  be  in 
need  of  wise  counsel  rather  than  stern  denunciation — 
persuasion  rather  than  punishment.  She  made  large 
allowance  for  early  training,  heredity,  cramped  en- 
vironment, and  exceptional  temptation. 

But  while  absorbed  in  her  local  work  she  never 
slighted  outside  or  foreign  obligations.  Her  family 
ties  were  iron  stanchions.  Her  invalid  father,  whom 
she  took  to  her  western  home  for  his  declining  years, 
he  having  previously  buried  her  beautiful  mother,  she 
cherished  so  tenderly  that  after  some  special  service 
he  would  involuntarily  exclaim :  '*Oh,  she  is  one  of 
ten  thousand !"  She  mothered  her  brother's  mother- 
less little  girls,  never  dreaming  how  they  would  em- 
bellish her  middle  years  "after  the  similitude  of  pal- 
aces",  and   fulfilled   to   the   uttermost   every   precious 


MATURITY.  63 

obligation  of  kin.  Her  friendships  at  large  were  as 
steady  as  the  stars,  and  though  they  crowded  upon 
her  as  the  years  passed  she  never  forsook  the  old  in 
order  to  gather  in  the  new.  A  playmate  of  her  earliest 
childhood,  who  is  now  living  and  mourning  her  loss, 
she  never  failed  to  visit  as  often  as  opportunity  of- 
fered, strengthening  nearly  every  year  the  adamant 
bonds  of  child-allegiance.  Once  a  friend,  a  friend  for- 
ever, and  ''auld  acquaintance",  because  perennial,  was 
sweetest  of  all.  There  were  no  arid  spaces  in  be- 
tween-years,  and  she  had  the  rare  value  of  beginning 
just  where  she  left  off,  so  that  the  continuity  of  heart 
contact  was  unbroken,  though  years  and  seas  rolled 
between.  To  the  glory  of  a  crown  friendship  let 
this  record  testify ! 

And  so  to  permanent  residents  of  Monticello, 
meridian  years  sped  on,  as  like  as  the  golden  apples 
in  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides.  Through  them  in 
regular  succession  moved  the  jocund  processional  of 
girls — Seniors  going,  but  Juniors  coming — some 
tears  in  June,  but  more  smiles  in  October,  song  and 
laughter  on  the  air,  innocent  mirth  in  the  foreground, 
and  all  to  the  dance  music  of  the  young;  but  above, 
beneath  and  behind  all,  the  rare  seriousness  which 
pervades  the  atmosphere  of  earnest  study  when  grey 
matter  in  immature  brains  begins  to  stir,  and  the 
rushing  interrogatories  of  "why,  whence  and  where- 
fore?" come  crowding  into  the  chambers  of  stimu- 
lated thought.  No  monotony  here  for  those  who 
were  growing  almost  imperceptibly  soberer-minded 
in  the  more  frequent  pauses  for  reflection.     Life  was 


64  MATURITY. 

neither  a  tread-mill  nor  a  machine-shop  in  which 
"specimens"  were  turned  out  after  some  stereotyped 
pattern,  but  it  was  a  miniature  Paradiso  of  experi- 
ment, in  which  each  flower  was  called  by  its  own 
name,  trained  and  developed  by  being  "personally 
conducted"  through  Queen's  Gardens,  while  the 
mother-enchantress  waved  her  wand  over  the  zvaste 
places,  always  discovering  the  otherwise  'ieft-outs"^ 
the  sore  hearts,  the  dull  brains,  the  "unemployed"  be- 
cause the  formerly  unprivileged. 

No  sorrowful  face  passed  beneath  that  observant 
eye  unnoticed,  for  her  sympathies  were  as  quick  to 
discern  the  griefs  as  the  joys  of  her  juveniles.  She 
watched  the  Waterloo  of  the  defeated,  the  timid 
damsel  who  failed  to  pass  creditably  an  exhausting 
examination  (for  examinations  are  ohvays  exhaust- 
ing to  the  high-strung  excitable  pupil  who  lives  by 
nerves  alone).  The  presiding  genius  had  a  soft  pres- 
sure of  hand  for  the  quaking  performer  who  "broke 
down"  in  musicale  and  returned  to  her  seat  with  sobs 
suppressed  in  her  quivering  throat.  In  a  word,  she 
understood  with  a  marvelous  prescience  the  "mixed 
mathematics"  of  unsolved  problems,  and  wrote  their 
varied  equations  so  deftly  that  they  soon  resolved  into 
"known  quantities"  beneath  puzzled  eyes,  and  bewild- 
ered brains.  She  has  been  styled  "one  of  the  elect 
of  the  earth"  who  helped  each  girl  "find  herself" !  A 
complement  of  Thomas  Arnold,  the  prince  of  teachers, 
she  was  the  priestess  of  that  high  vocation,  and  min- 
istered incorparably  at  its  high  altars. 

But  the  sun  does  not  tarry  at  zenith,  the  day  must 


MATURITY.  65 

wane  as  well  as  wax,  and  there  was  no  staying  the 
after-crisis.  The  pulsing  life  had  after  all  been  too 
strenuous,  though  there  seemed  no  lapsing  of  intel- 
lectual force,  the  aplomb  of  race  maintaining  its  ''title 
clear''  to  pride  of  birth  and  verve  of  bearing  for  a 
long  time.  The  surrender  would  be  slow  but  sure. 
The  tide  was  on  the  turn  long  e'er  its  ebb  was  recog- 
nizable, for  the  tone  was  still  as  clear  as  ringing  bell, 
the  smile  as  rare  and  sweet,  the  cheer  as  constant, 
though  the  step  was  not  as  steady  as  of  old.  Could 
it  be  possible  that  the  ''silver  cord"  always  so  tense 
and  taut  before  could  be  loosing;  the  "golden  bowl" 
so  piled  with  treasure  always,  could  be  breaking;  the 
"pitcher"  spilling  at  the  fountain;  the  "wheel"  so 
steady  at  the  "cistern"  no  longer  to  be  trusted? 
Could  it  be  possible  the  light  of  the  house  could  be 
qui  veering  in  the  socket,  the  glory  of  the  house  fading, 
as  do  sunset  clouds  at  eventide?  Onlookers  nearest 
and  dearest  shuddered  in  silent  anguish,  but  spoke  na 
word,  and  gave  no  sign.  They  understood  too  well 
what  must  be  voiced  if  speech  escaped  the  barred 
prison  of  the  lips. 

Note.  To  a  certain  class  of  readers  it  may  seem 
surprising  that  the  account  of  this  remarkable  life,  now 
nearing  its  close,  should  be  buttressed  by  so  few  dates 
and  names.  Apologetically,  there  are  few  dates  to 
give,  and  they  do  not  matter  or  particularly  profit. 
'Tis  not  formal  biography  which  is  recorded  here,  but 
more  the  life  intimate,  the  song  that  murmured  in  the 
shell  rather  than  the  anthem  that  pounded  on  the 
shore.     "Times  and  seasons"  in  such  lives  are  practi- 


66  MATURITY. 

cally  dateless,  for  gala  days  and  ''melancholy"  merge 
into  a  Pilgrim's  Progress  of  delight ;  more  mellow 
than  any  splendid  vision  of  a  Faery  Queen,  it  becomes 
a  living  allegory,  shining  true  in  real  life. 

"There  is  no  death,  what  seems  so  is  transition. 

This  life  of  mortal  breath  is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life 
Elysian, 

Whose  portals,  we  call  death." 


V. 
HARVEST  HOME. 


The  dreaded  possible  now  became  probable,  the 
probable  the  inevitable !  "Great  Heart"  spiritually 
was  now  weak  heart  physically;  that  once  bounding 
pulse  was  slowing  down.  Skilled  doctors  with  all 
modern  scientific  appliances  sought  to  steady  the 
fluctuating  beat,  to  strengthen  the  relaxing  muscle. 
The  nurses,  expert  professionals,  become  almost  kin 
sisters  in  exquisite  devotion  to  "such  a  patient  as  they 
had  never  treated  before !"  one  displaying  fortitude, 
to  be  sure,  as  did  many  another,  but  fortitude  shot  all 
through  with  sunny  smiles,  racy  words,  and  over  all 
the  most  gracious  benignity  of  presence. 

Where  she  lay  was  the  throneroom  of  the  house, 
from  which  went  every  morning  at  the  prayer  hour 
some  tender  and  beautiful  message  to  the  school,  as 
often  bearing  laughter  as  tears.  Every  evening  her 
door  must  be  wide  opened  that  she  might  catch 
the  vesper  song  as  its  sweet  notes  were  wafted  up- 
ward. Her  absence  was  more  potent  than  an  aver- 
age presence ;  her  slightest  wish  the  Golden  Law  of 
all  behavior.  Enshrined  in  flowers,  and  surrounded 
by  those  who  watched  every  breath  and  motion,  she 
seemed  least  concerned  of  any.  The  silver  tongue 
had  lost  none  of  the  magic  of  its  low,  rich,  trenchant 
eloquence ;  the  clear,  keen  eye  no  twinkle  of  its  spark- 
ling humor  when  "somebody  blundered"  in  very  eager- 


68  HARVEST    HOME. 

ness  to  exactly  suit  occasion.  Not  a  meal  was  placed 
before  her  that  she  did  not  receive  it  with  the  grace 
befitting  a  banquet  of  the  gods — never  failing  to  send 
some  facetious  message  to  those  who  had  so  striven 
to  prepare  it  to  her  taste.  She  must  be  sure  upon  re- 
tiring that  the  "night  watch"  had  the  daily  paper  to 
beguile  the  rests  between  the  beats  of  hourly  rounds. 
Despite  the  doctors  and  the  nurses  she  would  know 
what  was  "going  on" ;  and  it  was  really  better  so,  for 
then  she  felt  herself  in  her  Queen  Chariot  of  state,  and 
it  was  a  delight  ever  for  her  "ladies  in  waiting"  to 
appear  to  yield  (when  in  any  measure  possible)  to 
her  bland  command. 

Perhaps  7nore  in  illness  than  in  health  did  she  ex- 
hibit the  prime  traits  of  her  noble  character — self 
was  submerged  in  her  continuous  solicitude  for  some- 
body else.  As  was  said  of  Gen.  Grant  during  his  last 
days  (Century  Magazine),  Her  "last  and  only  surren- 
der was  her  greatest  victory".  "It  is  not  so  much 
the  mere  size  of  a  person,  as  actions  under  ordinary 
circumstances  which  make  up  human  experience". 
Again :  "There  is  no  place  in  which  human  nature 
shows  itself  so  plainly  as  in  the  sick-room.  The 
patient  is  there  *off  guard'  against  all  conventional 
formalities,  and  appears  the  plain  and  simple  self". 
So  her  "out  put"  under  these  circumstances  was  of 
nobility  and  sweetness  at  the  core.  Not  a  single 
peevish  expression  of  face,  not  an  irritated  fret  upon 
the  tongue,  indicated  that  she  was  battling  with  the 
great  conqueror,  and  constituting  herself  a  heroine 
of  Christian  fortitude,  worthy  the  proudest  laurels  of 


HARVEST    HOME.  69 

a  victor,  but  a  victor  "retired"  by  suffering  from  the 
plaudits  of  the  "open"  field.  The  few  who  were 
nearest — her  "body-guard" — knew  her  struggle  to 
breathe — but  never  any  apparent  struggle  to  smile 
or  speak  the  word  so  like  an  "apple  of  gold  in  a  pic- 
ture of  silver".  They  saw  the  labor  of  the  heart  to 
beat — but  also  the  spontaneous  sparkle  of  the  eye  in 
appreciative  response.  As  ever  it  was  a  privilege  to 
be  of  her  "entourage",  while  to  render  her  a  service 
and  receive  her  grateful  recognition  was  like  a  jewel 
in  hand.  So  non-assertive  of  sovereignty  was  she 
that  her  sovereignty  was  the  imperialism  of  Love  un- 
bounded. 

So  "the  nights  were  filled  with  music,  and  the 
cares  that  infested  day,  oft  folded  tents  like  Arabs, 
and  silently  stole  away".  Every  hour  grew  more  and 
more  consecrate  as  it  passed  on  toward  the  Eternities, 
and  rendered  more  fixed  the  fact  that  Hope  must  furl 
her  wings ;  while  faces  must  remain  placid,  lest  a 
frown  of  brow  or  quiver  of  eye-lash  should  quicken 
that  labored  breathing  beyond  recovery.  Conversa- 
tion was  not  allowed  to  languish,  nor  light  persiflage 
concerning  "affairs".  The  quickest  reply,  the  sagest 
obseivation,  the  cleverest  quip  was  ever  hers.  Every- 
thing human,  sane  and  suggestive  was  "in  order", 
and  there  was  no  frightened  repression  of  the  chaste 
gayety  that  always  clothed  her  as  a  garment.  She 
watched  the  marvel  of  the  springing  grass,  the  miracle 
of  budding  trees,  the  timid  flutter  of  the  robin's  wing, 
from  her  bay-window,  where  she  always  sat,  with  as 
much  alert   interest  as  in  any  spring  before,   except 


70  HARVEST    HOME. 

that  sometimes  for  a  moment  there  stole  over  that 
beautiful  face  a  holy  calm  that  was  a  precursor  of  a 
better  country'  than  even  this  earth,  so  lovely  to  behold 
when  opening  to  the  resurrection  of  flowers. 

These  sacred  weeks  were  her  last  evangels  of 
teaching  by  example  what  she  had  so  often  taught  by 
precept.  Though  her  bodily  strength  steadily  di- 
minished, her  gallant  spirit  maintained  its  equilibrium, 
but  everybody  knew  the  struggle  was  unequal,  and 
though  no  apprehensive  word  was  spoken,  on  each  face 
as  it  turned  azcay  from  her  keen  scrutiny  was  writ- 
ten the  dumb  alphabet  of  grief.  Such  tensions  are 
impossible  of  long  continuance,  such  an  impressive 
object  lesson  must  soon  come  to  inevitable  closure 
from  its  own  accentuated  significance ;  and  so  while 
brave  expectant  watchers  bent  above  her,  the  sleep 
He  giveth  His  Beloved  brooded  over  the  pillow; 

That  sleep  more  sound  than  poppies  can  procure ; 

More  sweet  than  little  children's  slumber  pure ; 

More  dreamless  than  a  spotless  conscience  gives 

To  couch  of  the  most  righteous  man  that  lives ; 

The  hush  of  that  enforced  burial  wait 

When  humblest  menial  is  nobilitate ; 

That  marble  silence,  though  the  sleeper  knows 

The  secrets  of  her  sculpturesque  repose ; 

The  rigid  curves  of  that  God-moulded  form, 

But  late   so  flexible  and   rosy-warm, 

All  testify  with  a  supreme  accord 

And  in  concurrence  with  the  ivritten  word 

The  high  prerogatives  of  that  still  clime 

That  lift  the  lowliest  to  rank  sublime. 

Whom  final  passage  of  the  mortal  breath 

Escutcheons  with  the  regnant  dignity  of  death. 


HARVEST   HOME.  71 

A  sacrament  of  perfect  peace  now  consecrated  that 
absolutely  breathless  silence,  so  that  there  was  no 
"shock",  but  rather  a  benediction  of  departure. 

The  knowledge  that  she  was  "resting''  smothered 
for  a  time  all  sense  of  loss,  and  things  moved  on  as 
quietly  as  though  a  babe  had  fallen  into  natural  slum- 
ber. As  if  she  herself  had  ordered  it,  the  household 
kept  its  mute  tryst  with  sorrow,  and  gave  no  vehe- 
ment sign — because  she  would  have  wished  it  so! 

Permit  here  some  partial  quotation  from  Memor- 
ial tributes  with  which  to  conclude. 

"In  silent  majesty  within  the  beautiful  Eleanor 
Reid  Chapel  lay  the  earth  form  of  her,  the  ever  Be- 
loved. A  service  brief  and  beautiful  was  held.  As 
in  the  past,  so  now  there  rose  in  unison  the  prayer  in 
which  she  had  so  often  led,  and  under  the  arches 
swelled  the  chorus  of  sweet  young  voices : 

"In  Heavenly  Love  abiding, 
No  change  my  heart  shall  fear". 

Then  between  lines  of  reverent  girls  all  clad  in 
spotless  white,  no  carriage  following,  she  was  borne 
down  the  driveway  leading  through  the  campus,  green 
with  early  spring,  her  maiden  band  in  last  sad  wait- 
ing, a  shining  picture  and  a  hallowed  scene,  a  chaste 
memory  to  be  cherished  forevermore." 

Far  off  in  her  native  state  rests  her  mortal  body. 
The  silver  splendor  of  the  single  rose  in  the  folded 
hand  over  the  sable  robe  has  withered,  but  she  now 
walks  in  white  amid  amaranth  and  immortelles. 


72  HARVEST    HOME. 

'Tis  well  that  her  noble  bust,  no  nobler  than  her 
character,  consecrates  the  chapel  foyer;  better  that  her 
sweet  pictured  face,  no  sweeter  than  her  sunny  dis- 
position, adorn  its  walls  amid  the  gallery  of  its  previ- 
ous worthies,  but  best  of  all  that  the  open  gates  to  the 
campus  should  ever  hereafter  be  known  as  the  Haskell 
Gates,  through  which  must  pass  crowds  of  Hebes  to 
learn  the  story  of  her  who  loved,  rebuilt,  and  died  for 
Monticello — for  the  strain  of  it  all  (though  blessed 
strain  it  was)  broke  her  down  at  last! 

Hers  was  ideal  dying;  like  after  glow  of  eve 
That  brings  from  noon-tide  fevers  such  exquisite  re- 
prieve ; 
(My  hand  was  last  in  clasping,  one  cooling  'neath  my 

touch : 
Was  ever  mortal  anguish  to  be  compared  with  such?) 
Yet  'twas  ideal  dying;  some  angel  swept  his  wing 
Across  those  classic  features,  as  if  en-spiriting 
With  heavenly  grace  the  passing  of  a  finished  human 

fate 
Into  the  broader  reaches  of  more  majestic  state. 
Yes,  'twas  ideal  dying,  her  shallop  "crossed  the  Bar" 
Toward     sea's     unruffled     splendor     since     light     of 

Bethlehem's    star ; 
Who  walked  upon  those  waters  through  tempests  of 

affright 
Toward  Azrael's  holy  silence  'mid  "calms  of  pure  de- 
light" ? 
There  was  no  farewell  spoken,  for  music  of  the  spheres 
Gave  pledges  of  a  dawning  beyond  these  mortal  years, 


HARVEST    HOME.  73 

Where   welcomes   shall   be   ringing   instead   of   drear 

good-byes, 
For  Calvary  has  promised  that  all  the  dead  shall  rise. 
''Tis  all  ideal  dying — the  Resurrection  Morn 
Shows  all  the  zvorld,  an  Eden  in  which  mankind  was 

born. 
We  weep  meanwhile,  forgetting,  that  glory  of  the  sea 
Which  trailed  the  silver  treading  of  God  of  Galilee. 


A  few  weeks  later  the  elder  of  the  two  neices, 
(before  mentioned  as  her  devoted  care)  Elizabeth 
Porter  Haskell,  was  laid  beside  her.  Devitalized  by  a 
previous  illness  arising  from  no  appreciable  cause  at 
the  time,  she  proved  unequal  to  the  wrench  of  separa- 
tion from  one  so  much  beloved,  and  faded  like  a 
blighted  flower.  It  was  as  if  she  said :  "Entreat  me 
not  to  leave  thee  or  to  return  from  following  after  thee. 
Where  thou  goest  I  will  go ;  where  thou  lodgest  I  will 
lodge.  Where  thou  diest  I  will  die  and  there  will  I 
be  buried.  The  Lord  do  so  to  me  and  more  also" 
if  even  death  part  thee  and  me! 

As  medallion  against  statue 

Knows  no  terms  of  great  or  small, 

Does  the  one  who  followed  after 

Heed  our  agonizing  call? 

Does  she  speak  our  dear  love  language, 

Sonsie,  sweet  Elizabeth ; 

Does  she  ''sense"  us  now  she's  wearing 

Nimbus  drapery  of  death? 


FAREWELL    (Intivie) 


Dear  friends,  whoever  and  wherever  you  are,  I 
hesitatingly  place  this  pen  mosaic  in  your  hands,  un- 
even in  detail  as  mosaics  are  apt  to  be  in  their  cubes, 
but  perchance  effective  and  shapely  in  general  contour. 
It  has  really  written  itself  as  such  heart  tributes  do, 
without  diplomatic  reserves,  as  also  without  any  dis- 
play of  technique.  Truth  has  been  my  pole  star  as 
clearly  as  I  could  discern  it  through  the  hazing  mists 
of  memories  past,  though  I  am  well  aware  there  may 
be  some  trivial  errors  as  to  order  of  events,  but  they 
are  unimportant  and  do  not  affect  the  general  carry 
of  the  narrative. 

Not  a  word  has  been  set  down  for  "effect".  Hav- 
ing been  constantly  with  her  by  day  and  by  night,  at 
home  and  abroad,  through  girlhood,  womanhood  and 
maturity,  I  claim  my  rights  as  an  accredited  witness, 
one  of  which  rights  is  to  be  believed  because  I  know 
so  thoroughly  that  which  I  have  delineated — not  "after 
the  manner  of  men",  statuesque — but  after  the  man- 
ner of  women,  arabesque — and  diviner  because  the 
brochure  has  been  dipped  in  the  chrism  of  a  life-long 
tenderness. 

I  submit  it  with  most  sincere  affection  both  for 
yourselves   and   Her,   so   mutually   beloved,   and   now" 


FAREWELL.  75 

that  it  is  finished,  on  this  Sixth  of  May,  the  first  an- 
niversary of  Her  Harvest  Home,  I  drop  my  pen  be- 
tween, and  weave  my  Rosemary  round  those  conse- 
crated graves  in  Maine. 

Emily  Gilmore  Alden. 

Boston,  May  6th,  1908. 


MEMORIAL    HYMN. 


Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  gflory  of  memorials  for  the 

dead, 
Because  of  hearts  sob-shaken,  and  the  tears  that  wait 

unshed  ; 
A  cave  was  called   Machpelah,  for   therein  a  woman 

slept 
And    did   not   waken   at   the   call   of   patriarch    who 

wept. 

For  since  this  brilliant   star-dust    has    been    thickly 

sown  with  sins. 
Our  losses   write   in   requiems,  while  love  and  grief 

are  twins  ; 
It    may   be   g-ranite    pillar,    or    a   head-stone  in  the 

grass. 
Which  tells  of  rest  in  pace  to  all  mourners   as  they 

pass. 

More   numerous    than    palaces    are    cenotaphs    and 

towers, 
Which  speak  a  tongue  more  eloquent  than  languages 

of  flowers. 
It    may    be    English    Westminster,    or   India's   Taj 

Mahal, 
Or  grand    St.    Peter's     lordly     dome,    or     Spain's 

Escurial ; 


78  MEMORIAL    HYMN. 

Or  Santa  Croce  beauteous,  or  Kremlin's  mina- 
rets. 

They  each  and  all  are  witnesses  :  when  loyalty 
forg^ets 

The  stars  will  jump  their  courses,  or  the  rivers 
shun  the  sea 

If  there  remain  no  crosses  for  the  Christ  of  Calvary. 


Mine   eyes   have   seen  the  sadness  of  memorials  for 

the  dead. 
When    there    is    only    sig-hing:.    and  no    services  are 

read. 
A  v/aft  of    crape    is    floating;    loose    beside    a    hovel 

door, 
A  sing-le    rose    bush    blooming   fresh  upon  a  lonely 
.    moor. 

A  field  of  wheat  may  wave  lament   where   that  "Old 

Guard"  went  down. 
While   not    an    olive    spreads    above    the    gfrave    on 

Xebo's  crown  ; 
It  may  be  Doric  column  or  the  curves  of  Ang^elo. 
All  tell  the   self-same  story  of  the  weig:ht  of  human 

woe. 

It  may  be  brush  of  painter,  or  the  magpie  of  the  pen 
That   tries   to   soften   trag^edy.  vrhich   broods  the  race 

of  men  : 
Perchance  a  strain  of  music,  or  the  wealth   of  spoken 

word 
That  phrases  a  beatitude  wherever  it  is  heard. 


MEMORIAL    HYMN.  79 

But  this   memorial   differs,    for  'tis  not    a  pilgprim's 

shrine, 
Nor  yet  a  mausoleum,  with  its  sculpturesque  design ; 
Instead,  a  stately  portal,  with  a  name  graved   on  the 

stones 
Which   always  will    be    spoken    in    our   hushed  and 

reverent  tones. 

The  name  of  her  who   builded  so  much  better  than 

she  knew, 
Not  only  temple   made  with  hands  but  life   so  rich 

and  true. 
'Tis    meet    that    all    who  enter   here,   in    future  that 

awaits, 
Should    pass    as    if   on    "holy    ground"     Memorial 

Haskell  Gates. 

'Tis  well  that   proud  processional   of    those  who've 

gone  before 
Have  set  this  gate  imperial  before  her  palace  door  ; 
That  those  who're  coming  after  can  discern  a  Queen's 

domain, 
And    not    the    sad    reminder   of    Death's    separation 

pain. 

So   our  eyes  have  seen  the  beauty  of  this  tribute  to  a 

soul 
That   made   life   an   evang^el    by  its    pure   symmetric 

whole  ; 
Far  finer  than  escutcheon  of  a  Romanoff  or  Guelph, 
Or    any    shaft    in    Pere   Lachaise,  this  charmed  life 

itself. 


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